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WITH INCIDENTS IN THE EARLY HISTORV OF 



MEXICO, N. Y. 




M^HiMir 



THE 



OLD PRATHAM CHURCH. 



WITH INCIDENTS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF 



MEXICO, N. Y. 



A SEEMON DELIVERED BY EEV. A. PARKE BURGESS, 
IN PEATTVILLE AND MEXICO, AUGUST 27, 1876. 



"How often have I loitered o'er thy green, 

Where humble happiness endeared each scene ! 

How often have I paused on every charm — 

The sheltered cot, the cultivated fann, 

The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 

The decent church that topped the neighboring hill." 

GoldsmiWs Deserted Village. 



THE FATHERS-WHERE ARE THEY?" 



PRINTED AT 45 JEFFERSON STREET, 

SYRACUSE, N. Y. 

187 7. 






F ASTORS. 



DAVID R. DIXON, 1818 to 1833. 
WM. B. STOWE, 1833 to 1836. 
JOHN L. MARVIN, 1840 to 1843. 
EZRA SCOVILLE, 18,43 to 1853. 
RALPH ROBINSON, 1853 to 1857. 

TiIlA.0ONS. 



E. GATES. 
THOMAS ROOT. 
JOHN BECKER. 
ELIAS BREWSTER. 



WM. A. DAVIS. 
WM. S. TUBES. 
GATES MILLER. 
L. P. HALL. 



EXiDIiRS. 



EPHRAIM GATES. 
DANIEL LOCKE. 
EDMUND WHEELER. 
SHUBAL ALFRED. 
LEVI MATTHEWS. 
JABIN WOOD. 
THOMAS ROOT. 
JOHN BECKER. 



CHESTER HOLCOMB. 
MARTIN P. KELLOGG. 
JOHN MILLER. 
ARCHIBALD GARRISON. 
ELIAS BREWSTER. 
WILLIAM. A. DAVIS. 
GATES MILLER, 
WILLIAM S. TUBBS. 



PREFACE 



The task of preparing and afterwards amplifying this sketch has not 
been slight ; and yet it has been agreeable. I only regret its imperfec- 
tions and omissions. Gladly would I have gathered up the personal his- 
tories of many whom I have been compelled to pass in silence. I wish to 
acknowledge the valuable aid of many friends ; Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Stone, 
George R, Slack, Col. Hosmer, numerous correspondents, and several 
citizens of PrattvUle, but for whose help the work would have been im- 
possible. A \ X) A- M 4 A. p. B. 

^1 



HISTORICAL SERMON. 



PKATTYILLE, N, Y. 



1876. 



TEXT 



"And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys, by 
the commandment of the Lord." Num. xsxiii : 2. 

INTRO D.U CTORY WORDS. 

History is a running commentary upon the government of 

God. It is an exegesis upon his providences ; a revelation of 

his purposes 5 a demonstration of the truth of his word- 

" God in history," is a devout sentiment, in the light of which 

all history becomes more suggestive and more valuable. Thus 

considered, it enables us to trace the footsteps of God among 

men, and affords us data from which to forecast the future. 

What has been shall be ; good or ill, in time to come, will 

follow upon the same occasions out of which they have arisen 

in the past. God's administration is not capricious. As he 

did yesterday, so he will do to-morrow. The paths in which 

generations have gone, up or down, are the paths in which 

C other generations shall go. History, therefore, sets guide- 

XI boards, and shows us mystical fingers, pointing out roads for 

0) men, along the stages of life. It erects signal-stations on hill. 

O tops and shores. It tells us when and where we may expect 

^ clouds and storms ; and unfolds to us the atmospheric and 

T3 

u 
O 

c 

I 



isothermal laws of the moral world. It contradicts Atheism, 
and silences the fool who says " there is no God." The his* 
tory of a past age, is the " old probabilities" of the present? 
and enables us to foresee the dangerous seas, and rocks, and 
shores of to-morrow. 

History is, therefore, important; and should be carefully 
written by each generation for the instruction and counsel of 
the next. When events are transpiring, if of any value to 
anybody, now or hereafter, they should be snatched from the 
current that would soon bear them into forgetfulness, and put 
into forms of permanent preservation ; as we love to do with the 
faces of our friends, by placing them in our albums, before the 
undertaker places them beneath the sod. No more should 
historical treasures be left to the custody of memory, than 
should the dear, sweet features of our departing loved ones. 
What is worth knowing, and telling, and remembering is worth 
writing out. If the history of your community affords any 
lessons, write them. If the annals of your Church are of any 
consequence to the future, give them record. If your own life 
is of any significance, keep a diary. 

Research would have more of fascination, and less of tire* 
some perplexity, had daily transpirings been properly dotted 
down, and facts and changes been noted ; for those elipses 
which result from neglect to do this are less serious to partici- 
pants than to the historian who comes afterward, to pick up 
the dropped stitches of fact and incident, and re-knit the 
raveled tissue. 

There is in anticipation a charm, in the task of exhuming 
the past, and digging out its hurried relics and records, its 
names and dates and persons and doings ; but the charm is dis- 
pelled, when we find the story broken in two in the middle, 
the connection destroyed, valuable data lost beyond recovery 
through the carelessness of somebody, who died before we 
were born, and whose ears, therefore, it is impossible for us 
to reach, with a gentle rebuke. 

Still, the task of resurrecting from a past era that which is 



5 

too precious to remain buried with it, is not so great as the 
blessing' which lies underneath that task. 

While regretting the meagerness and incompleteness of the 
following sketch, from which many things have been left out 
that it would have been pleasant to weave into it, I can 
assure you no labor has aflforded me more pensive enjoyment 
than this, which has brought to life again the good, the venera- 
ble, the holy, who, though dead, are yet eloquently speaking 
to us. 

"IN THE BEGINNING." 

How this once forest-burdened region came to be found out 
and settled at-all, is a question that must be answered by a 
recurrence to that grand law of adventurous faith which under- 
lies the energies of men, prompted by which they are ever in 
quest of something better. There was a people who declared 
plainly that they desired " a better country, that is, an hea- 
venly," and God was not ashamed to be called the God of 
such a people. 

He never rebukes, in the human breast, that emulation by 
which we lawfully strive to rise to better conditions, and 
welcome risk and toil, in hope of an inheritance correspond, 
ingly improved. 

Vitalized by this spirit, civilization is a cosmopolite. It 

takes its way westward, because there is no other-ward it can 

take. 

Obeying this great law of uneasiness which makes universal 

man, in his more primitive conditions a migratory animal, there 
were men — companies, and- colonies, armies and squads of them, 
who, more than two centuries ago, began, for the sake of em- 
pire, or conquest, or trade, or war, or adventure, or settlement, 
to straggle through these forests, along these streams, and by 
the zigzag shores of these lakes. More than two hundred 
years ago, this region, with which we are wont to associate 
little that is classic or romantic, was military ground, and in 
the dim beginnings of its history it was dignified as the theatre 
of " the old French war," the legends of which are still linger- 
ing around old Fort Ontario, and other fortifications of the 



French and the English, between whom these trading posts and 
frontier defenses became the bone of greedy and protracted 
contentions. 

Finally neither English nor French could withstand the per- 
sistent and ubiquitous Yankee, and New England succeeded in 
getting her full share of the bone, and the meat that was on it. 

In 1790, a German merchant, from New York, by the name 
of Scriba, purchased of the Government, at sixteen cents per 
acre, the patch of five hundred thousand acres, covering what 
is now Oswego and part of Oneida County, and fixed for his 
head-quarters, a sort of capital ol his forest empire, at what is 
now Constantia; and true to his love of Fatherland, he named 
his young emporium " Rotterdam." 

From Oneida County, and the farther east, toward the close 
of the last century, and at the beginning of the present, peo- 
ple commenced to push outward through this Rotterdam 
settlement, which served as a sort of way-station, toward Lake 
Ontario, and the military and trading-post which has since 
grown into the city of Oswego. 

Mexico was then a town of Herkimer County, and in its 
territorial limits enjoyed no mean proportions ; as it inclu- 
ded most of the present counties of Oswego, Jefferson, and 
Lewis, and a portion of Oneida. 

Speaking of it in botanical phrase, we may say it was then 
a mammoth pod — a capsule, from which were shelled out, one 
by one, the following seeds; Camden in 1799, Champion, Red- 
field, Turin, Watertown andLowville in 1800, Adams in 1802, 
Lorraine and Williamstown in 1804, Volney in 1806, Con- 
stantia in 1808, New Heaven in 1813, and Palish in 1828 — 
the latter town having yet two years in which to prepare for 
its semi-centennial celebration. 

Vera Cruz, an ideal metropolis on the lake shore, became, 
at this early day, a rival of Utica and Oswego ; having a saw- 
mill, a grist-mill, and a store, with an active lake trade and 
many auspices of future growth. A street, we are told, was 



laid out bj the agent of Mr. Scriba, from the beach, up Little 
Salmon River, to what is now Texas Village. 

Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War, Silas Town, 
a spy in the employment of General Washington many years 
preceding, a New Englander, and an heir of fortune by birth, 
but around whose early history there hangs much of the sweet, 
sad haze of romance in which love and disappointment, as in 
many other instances, half reveal the " truth that is stranger 
than fiction," came to the sequestered shades of the tall chest- 
nut forest that skirted the lake, and chose for his abode and 
burial-place an island, now marked as the home of his ashes, 
by a monument erected in 1871 to his name. On this island 
he lived the last years of his life, in musing solitude. 

A man is of very appreciable value, in a community whose 
men may all be counted upon the finger-ends ; and such was 
the state of this shore-settlement, when, in 1799 a boat was 
capsized, and. Captain Geerman with six others were lost; 
and by a similar accident in 1804, nine more found a watery 
grave. But for these casualties, Mexicoville and Prattville 
might alike have been, to-day, only suburban portions of the 
wide-spreading city of Vera Cruz ; but with only one adult man 
left in the settlement its growth had to wait till it waited too 
long. 

Annals respecting the first population of the territory now 
embraced in the town of Mexico, are quite imperfect. The 
names of many first-settlers are lost. About twenty-five per- 
sons, we are told, had become dwellers here prior to 1798. 
Samuel Everts and his family came in 1804, and took up the 
farm which has continued in the possession of his heirs, and, 
with a vestige of the old house still standing upon it, is well 
known as " uncle Walter Evarts' farm." 

In 1804 '' Esquire Hamilton" was living in a log-house on 
the farm known as the " Lamb farm," and now owned by 
Isaac Burlingham. Calvin Tiffany, whose house was a nucleus 
for the beginnings of Church history as well as that of schools, 
in the town, had settled near the stream under the hill, just east 



8 

of the old "Primitive Cemetery," in 1799; and in 1801 Asa 
Davis, whose grandson and namesake, son of B. D. Davis, 
fell a soldier at New Orleans, located on the place where the 
latter now resides. John Morton, whose brother's wife, Luna, 
a member of the Church, complained to Shubal Alfred because 
his girls were allowed to dance, came also in 1801. 

In the spring of 1804, Martin Kellogg came to take posses- 
sion of a place adjoining Peter Pratt's subsequent farm, and 
spent several months clearing land and getting in crops, board- 
ing with "Esq. Hamilton," and brought his family on in 1805. 
In the same year came to this neighborhood Peter Pratt, Noah 
Smith, and Joel Savage. 

The history of Joel Savage is one of quite romantic interest 
and may as well be rescued from oblivion, by a brief recital in 
this connection. He was born in Middleton, Conn., in 1701. 
At the age of nineteen he enlisted in the army of his country, 
the war of American Independence having commenced. After 
enduring the hardships of a soldier's life about three years, 
while marching up the Mohawk Valley with a company of com- 
rades, en route for Fort Stauwix, an encounter with Indians 
took place, in which all were murdered but Savage and a Mr. 
Colton. They, displaying great bravery and strength, by slay- 
ing some of the red-skins, were magnanimously spared for their 
prowess, and taken on by the Indians to Fort Brewerton, 
where they by running the gauntlet escaped, and were taken 
prisoners by the British and carried to Canada, where Savage 
was kept till the close of the war, fifteen months, and then be 
ing liberated, repaired to the home of his parents, in Canaan 
Columbia county. There he was married to Abigail Smith 
and moved to Whitestown, whence, in a few years, he removed 
to Mexico, as already stated. 

These people came into the Pratham valley, and began, in 
an unbroken wilderness, to remove the timber from a little 
land, so as, with fish and game, to provision themselves for the 
ensuing season. Subsequently crops became abundant. But, 
without roads, or mills, it was not always easy to convert 



wheat into bread, or'corn into johnny-cake. Grists were car 
ried on horse-back to Camden, and in one of the hard winters, 
when the snow was so deep that tunnels were dug through it 
for paths, pestle and mortar had to take the place of the grist 
mill. 

Col. Sherman Hosmer, now the only surviving member of 
the early settlement, tells of going through an unbroken forest 
to Oswego Falls, near Fulton, with a small company of young 
ladies and gentlemen, on foot and on horseback, to attend a 
ball. The ladies carried their " finery," and put it on after 
arriving at the place. 

These pioneers of the Prattville society were men of breadth 
and enterprise, as well as of sturdy moral principle. They be- 
gan early to lay foundations for industry, wealth and growth. 
Anticipating even the west neighborhood, which afterward, 
owing to better natural helps, became the center of population 
and business, this East Mexico settlement began to foster the 
cause of religion, education, and material development. 

A woolen factory was conducted by Peter Pratt, Elias 
Brewster and Dr. Sardius Brewster. Peter Pratt erected the 
first saw-mill and distillery, and was a partner with Elias Brew- 
ster in the first variety store and tin shop. Joel Savage kept 
the first tavern, on the corner where Edward Halsey now lives, 
and his family spread out on a square mile or more of the 
country north and west from his house. They were nearly all 
members of the Church. Edward Smith established the first 
tannery and harness shop, on the stream east of Prattville 
Corners, and Simon Leroy the first cabinet shop. George 
Finney, a brother of the celebrated evangelist and President 
of Oberlin College, Charles G. Finney, was the first black- 
smith, and in the family of the late Nathaniel Slack a pair of 
large tongs, that have never " lost their cunning," still remain 
to show the strength of his right arm and the honesty of his 
work. He afterwards became a minister. 

The first framed house whose walls were plastered, still re- 
mains standing, near the residence of George Wheeler, and a 



10 

party of young people who came to the house for a dance, soon 
after the white mortar had been spread, never having seen the 
like before, took the plastering to be a screen of white cloth 
that had been for some purpose hung about the room. 

Mr. Smith procured the first stove, and the neighbors thought 
him unwise, and said it would certainly prove a very un- 
healthy way of warming the house. 

Calvin Tiffany kept a tavern as early as 1810; and the first 
cemetery, on the hill west of his place, was founded at a very 
early date, Mr. Scriba having given the land therefor, and Sam- 
uel Cole, who died in January, 1809, father of Rev. Samuel 
Cole, was the first fruit of the harvest of death, gathered in its 
now sacred dust. Mr. Cole was a Mason, and buried with Ma- 
sonic honors. It strikes us as an ungrateful fact, that no stone 
of any kind has been set up by loving hands, to mark the spot 
where he sleeps. It is due to his memory that somebody shall 
yet reclaim that primitive grave out of the oblivion that begins 
to hide it from those who tenderly visit the old burying ground. 

This was the only cemetery in the town, till 1838. Clarke 
Beebe was elected in 1821, by the Prattville society, to take 
charge of this ground, for the ensuing year. 

THE CHURCH PLANTED. 

Not long did the new community neglect '' the one thing 
needful." They had been bred in the love of gospel institu- 
tions. Ingrained in their very fibre was an attachment to 
God's sanctuary, and reverence for his ordinances. They were 
largely Connecticut people, wlio had been molded to a form of 
Godliness, even before induction into a personal kno\\'ledge of 
its power. They had acquired, through a sturdy New England 
education, a profound sense of religion, as necessary to good 
society, and an upright life. Though they were not all Chris- 
tians, yet their theories of political ecomomy and of good 
breeding, included a well-sustained Church ; and in their 
judgment, the public welfare was largely dependent on what 
some one has called a " careful discipline of the moral feel- 



11 

ings," which only the eflicient, ministrations of religion can 
afford. Theirs was the day in which such Statesmen as Judge 
Story taught that it was the duty of government, even for its 
own sake, and as necesssary to good citizenship and a good 
education, '' to foster and cherish religion among its citizens 
and subjects." 

Hence we find the little colony making haste to lay the foun- 
dations of religious training, as they laid the foundations of 
education and material prosperity in their beginnings here. 
Theirs was the wise notion that the church and school-house 
belong side by side. True to this reverent faith, they organ- 
ized a Church, in 1810 j twenty years after Scriba purchased 
the territory, and four years after Sanford Douglass taught ihe 
first School at Colosse. This Church was one of the earliest 
planted in this whole region of country, and consisted at first of 
seven women, who had not, till afterward, even one man to lay 
hold of for deacon or other office of trust or honor. Those God- 
ly and heroic women were : Mrs. Shubal Alfred, Mrs. Mary 
Wheeler, Mrs. Rebecca Matthews, Mrs. Sarah Beebe, Mrs- 
Eunice Williams, Mrs. Merriam Southworth, Mrs. Hannah 
Hosmer. Very soon afterward, however, there were some of 
the men who seem to have been moved by Paul's admonition to 
" help those women ;" and we have every reason to reverence 
them, as having been worthy to head the list of holy women 
and men, who afterward shone in the ranks of the Church with 
a steady and commanding light. And, as we pass, may we not 
say of them, as Paul said of the women, his yoke-fellows, their 
'• names are in the book of life ?" 

This first Church was of the Congregational order, and was 
organized in Shubal Alfred's barn, Rev. Simon Waterman, in 
the employ of the Connecticut Missionary Society, presiding at 
its formation. In those days of frontier growth, society being 
on a rapid march westward, missionary enterprize had ample 
stimulus; and many organizations designed to follow up with 
the gospel those who overflowed into the wilderness, were from 
time to time formed. The Connecticut Society was among 



12 

these, and was organize in 1798, by the State Congregational 
Association ; six ministers and six laymen being its trustees, 
and its two-fold object being to " Christianize the heathen of 
North America, and to support and promote Christian knowl- 
edge in the new settlements within the United States." This 
was the first of the missionary societies that hallowed these 
grounds with the self-denying toils of their servants ; and Wat- 
erman, Brainard and Leavitt were among the first of these. 
Nothing is recorded and little is known of this first Church, 
save that it was supplied with missionary preaching by such 
men as Israel Brainard, of Verona, Oliver Leavitt, of Rich- 
land, — the first Congregational minister within the bounds of 
the present county of Oswego, — Mr. Dunlap, a minister from 
Washington county, who dispensed the gospel and traded ia 
lands, Mr. Waterman, to whom reference was just made, and 
some others, Israel Brainard took a prominent part in the 
direction of religious interests in those days, and was one of 
the first two commissioners from Oneida Presbytery to Auburn 
Seminary, on the founding of that institution, in 1820. 

From the glimpses we obtain of Mr. Brainard, as he sought 
to organize and direct the work of the Lord all over these 
newly forming populations, extending his efforts to several 
counties and for a small salary, amid the primitive rudeness of 
the country, and the privations and labors incident thereto, we 
can but be impressed with his earnestness, his zeal, and his 
talent for leadership and management, in planting and estab- 
lishing the Church of Christ. To great multitudes, his memo- 
ry is precious. 

I take pleasure in referring here to an article by his daugh- 
ter, Mrs. G. W. Thompson, in the Evangelist of July 6th, 1876, 
in which she gives a racy account of the removal from Guil- 
ford, Connecticut, in 1806, to the " Whitestown Country," mak- 
ing the journey in a " one horse shay," which, at Troy, gave 
place to a " cart and oxen," by which more reliable than ele- 
gant conveyance they finished the pilgrimage, — a trip lasting 



13 

some two weeks and varied by " many a lively bounce," but 
bringing them in safety finally, to Verona, their intended home. 

THE SOCIETY FORMED. 

I have spoken of the formation of the Church. Prior to 
this in 1807, a Baptist Church had been planted in Colosse» 
and in 1809, in the house of Leonard Ames, the Methodist 
Church of Mexicoville. 

At first the Church only was formed, and this with but the 
simplest organization. But in May, 1811, "a number of the 
inhabitants" of Mexico " met at the house of Shubal Alfred, in 
said town, for the purpose of forming a religious society ;" thus 
began a business organization, to have in charge the temporal 
affairs of the Church. An organization was adopted under the 
name of " The First Congregational Society of Mexico." The 
act of organization under this name was duly recorded accord- 
ing to law. The first trustees, elected at this meeting, were 
Peter Pratt, whose widow* still remains living in the town. Bar- 
net Whipple, half-brother of Mrs. Asa Beebe, Sherman Hoa- 
mer, the only surviving member of the board, Shubal Alfred, 
whose descendents arc still in our midst, and Calvin Tiffany, 
who then kept a public house on what has since been known as 
the Calvin Tiffany place. The first clerk of trustees was John 
Kingsley, whose daughter, Pleiades Brewster, became the wife 
of Anson Savage, September 8th, 1830, and by a second mar. 
riage is now the wife of Martin Ely, of Mantorville, Minnesota- 
Kingsley, Ilosmer, Whipple and Tiffany never became mem- 
bers of the Church, nor did Pratt till twenty-one years after- 
ward, in 1832. But while these men were not professing 
Christians, they were eflicient supporters and able counselors 
of the Church, and endowed with moral worth and business 

talent. 

This society is still in existence, and its annual meetings 
have never lapsed, in this long period of sixty-five years, though 
for a few years the records are lost. The original records 



»Died January, 1877, aged eighty-seveu years. 



14 

have been preserved in the hands of Colonel Hosmer, and from 
the first pages I glean the following interesting minutes : " In 
the summer of 1812, the society paid Rev. Oliver Leavitt for 
nine Sabbaths, $45-$40 by subscription and |5 by collection ; — 
$1.25 now in the hands of the trustees." 

At the meeting in September, 1813, a letter having been 
written to Mr. Scriba, " soliciting his aid in procuring a piece 
of land for the support of a preached gospel in said society,'* 
Mr. Scriba's reply was read, which promised, in substance, that 
the society should have *•' fifty acres of land, the south part of 
the north half of lot No. 78, twentieth township of Scriba's 
patent, on condition that each member of the society shall work, 
or cause to be worked, three day's labor on the public high- 
way between Rotterdam and the twenty-third town, in one 
month from date." The terms were accepted, the work 
promptly done, a deed secured and recorded at a cost of one 
dollar, Peter Pratt and Calvin Tifiany having served by ap- 
pointment as a committee to carry out the stipulation, and 
David S. Bates Esq., to convey to Mr. Scriba the thanks of the 
society. This ' Rotterdam road" was a highway, twenty miles 
in length, reaching from Mr. Scriba's head-quarters on Oneida 
lake to his Utopean city of Vera Cruz, on lake Ontario, where 
is now the justly pre-eminent point for Sunday-school picnics, 
to which you are wont to resort. Traces of the old road bed 
are yet to be seen, a little east of Mexico village, and across 
the farms of Mrs. Zenas Butterfield and George Sampson, and 
beyond Colosse it is supposed to have been nearly identical 
with the road branching to the east, through " Carley's Mills" 
and West Monroe. 

SUBSEQUENT T R U S T E E S E L E C T E D . 

The following are the names of Trustees, who served one or 
more terms, during the subsequent history of the society, viz : 
John Kingsley, first elected in 1812; Ephraim Gates, whose 
daughter Mrs. Oliver, now resides on Paris Hill, and Joel 
Savage, who died at the age of eighty-one, in Waupun, Wis., 
March 1875, first elected in 1813; Daniel Locke, who removed 



15 

from the town in 1820, and Elias Brewster, prominent in the 
Church through all its subsequent history, first elected in 1814; 
Edmund Wheeler, whose descendents are now well know citi- 
zens of Mexico, first elected in 1815; Thomas Root, and Dr. 
Sardius Brewster, first elected in 1816; Dyer Burnham, of 
whose subsequent history I have not been able to learn, first 
elected in 1817; James Lamb and Lucius Webb, still repre- 
sented among us by their descendents, first elected in 1818; 
Wm. Goit, a name still remaining in the annals of the town, 
first elected in 1819 ; Levi Matthews, also known to us by his 
posterity, first elected in 1821; Luke Butterfield, brother of 
Zenas Butterfield, and Jabin Wood, venerably known as Dea- 
con Wood, and still living, first elected in 1822; Asa Beebe, 
now eighty-four years of age, and still living in Mexico, first 
elected in 1823; Wm. S. Fitch, the first merchant of Mexico 
village, and Warner Mitchel, first chosen in 1825; Wm. Por- 
ter, whose family in part remain in town, first elected in 1829 ; 
Dean Tubb's, a few of whose posterity yet remain here, first 
elected in 1830; Lewis Kellogg, for many years since a well- 
known Presbyterian minister, first elected in 1831; Samuel 
Emery, yet distinctly remembered by many, and Wm. S. Tubbs, 
recently promoted from labor to reward, first elected in 1833; 
Obed Griffeth, whose name has remained in the annals of the 
community, first elected in 1834; Nathaniel Slack, whose 
steady light still shines, though the candlestick has been 
removed, and Wm. A. Davis, long beloved for his official 
faithfulness and Christian usefulness, first elected in 1836; 
Anson Savage, brother of Joel Savage, first elected in 1837; 
Emelus Williams and Lexter Slack, both of fragrant mem- 
ory, first elected in 1839; Zenas Butterfield, first elected 
in 1841; George Sampson, surviving in a contented old 
age, and David C. Scofield, of whose removal to Indiana in 
1847 we have a record, first elected in 1844; Asa Davis, 
elected in 1 845 ; Benjamin D. Davis, now living on the old 
homestead, first elected in 1846; Milton Byington, who for 
many years owned the farm early occupied by Mr. Dixon? 



16 

the first pastor, first elected in 1 847 ; Linus Hall, elected in 
1850; J. D. Clarke, now an efficient member of the Wesleyan 
Methodist Church of Prattville, first elected in 1851; A. L. 
Sampson, elected in 1852 ; Lexter Slack and Shepherd Emery, 
in 1853; Anson Savage and Joseph P. Slack, in 1854; George 
Sampson, William A. Davis, William S. Tubbs, (to fill vacan- 
cy) in 1855; J. D. Clark, Nathaniel Slack, in 1856; Wm. A. 
Davis, Lexter Slack, in 1857; George Sampson, B. D. Davis, 
in 1858; A. L. Sampson, Linus P. Hall, in 1859 ; J. D. Clark, 
Sherman Hosmer, Wm. S. Tubbs, N. Slack, Milo Williams, 
(the entire board of trustees having resigned) in 1860; Wm. 
Halsey, in 1861 ; B. D. Davis, (to fill vacancy caused by de- 
cease of Wm. Halsey) July, 1861; Russel Burlingham, Wm. 
S. Tubbs, 1862; N. Slack, Truman Goodell, 1863; Loren 
Miller, 1864; Merwin Avery (to fill vacancy caused by decease 
of Loren Miller) Isaac Burlingham, W. S. Tubbs, in 1865 
J. D. Clark, S. B. Ford, 1866; G. R. Slack, 1867; L Burling 
ham, Hiram Webb, 1868; J. D. Clark, S. B. Ford, 1869 
I. N. Byington, W. S. Tubbs, (to fill vacancy) 1870; W. S 
Tubbs, B. D. Davis, 1871; J. D. Clark, E. N. Hills, 1872 
Alfred Burlingham, 1873; L N. Byington, E. W. Gates, 1874 
J. D. Clark, Charles L. Stillman, 1875; Alfred Burlingham, 
1876. 

THE CHUECH R E - R G A N I Z E D . 

Let US go back now, to the earlier days, when Church exten- 
sion was the animating spirit of both the Congregational bodies 
of New England, and of the Presbyterians of eastern New 
York, Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. 
Both, as we have seen, had put their mia?ionary zeal into 
practical operation, by combining to send men to keep abreast 
the pioneer, and blend the trumpet of the gospel with the re- 
sounding stroke of the woodman's axe. They were planning 
God's work. He had ordained the means and the resources — 
the faith, and wisdom, and holy zeal, by which His Church 
should always plant the banner of Christ upon the very out- 
posts of that advancing civilization which, but for his cross, 



17 

would never have shed its radiance upon the world. And God 
had men for his woi'k ; men to bear his messages. These holy 
vanguards of the spiritual conflict, had a faith as heroic as the 
world's discoverers and conquerors have ever had. With the 
forecast of a prophetic faculty, their ears turned to the future, 
they might have, said with the poet: , 

We hear the tread of pioneers ; 

Of nations yet to be ; 
The first low waves of sound where yet 

Shall roU a human sea. 

And where humanity with its on-coming millions pitches its 
battle and challenges every force on the good or evil side, to the 
conflict, there it is the glory of Christ to set up his kingdom. 
Hence, those were spiritually auspicious years in which the 
Church had its earlier history. During the last half of the 
eighteenth century, religious interests in America had run very 
low, revivals had been unfrequent, dearth had prevailed. But 
now, about the beginning of the present century, hundreds of 
Churches in New England were visited with gracious revivals ; 
^' thousands of souls were translated from the kingdom of Satan 
into the kingdom of God's dear Son ;" such fervent souls as 
that of Nettleton began to groan and pray and labor for the 
deliverance of the Churches from spiritual blindness an-d bond- 
age ; Dr. Dwight in the maturity of his power, president of 
Yale College, was making that institution the center of giant 
intellectual forces, and also of a spiritual energy and power, 
which impressed not only the young men for life, who were 
students there, but sent renovating influences out over the land ; 
Judson, Mills, Nott and Newell, the very summer in which this 
Church was organized, being then students at Andover, ap- 
peared before the General Association of Massachusetts, at 
Bradford, and first formally declared their convictions on the 
subject of Foreign Missions — a step which, as is well known, 
led to the organization of the American Board. Thus the 
birth of this Church was coincident with a general quickening 
■of the Church of Christ in America™ 



18 

The very spirit of this aggression for Christ was burning in 
the Churches — the sacred fire of missionary enterprise defying 
repression, manifesting itself in general and local organiza- 
tions, in ecclesiastical bodies and individual Churches, among 
even young men and young women, at the early period of 
which we are speaking. And it is well that it was so. If these 
regions, so rapidly populated, had but been filled with a secu- 
lar, mercenary crowd, who, if ever intent on better things, had 
left their religion behind them, for the sake of mammon un- 
shared with Christ, then, we would not have enjoyed to-day the 
heritage, into which the gospel has projected at every point a 
more precious value, which, as we lift our eyes, we everywhere 
behold. 

But, I was proceeding to say, that, as both the Congrega- 
tional and Presbyterian bodies were in a co-operative rivalry 
for those who, in the heterogeneous masses, preferred the Cal- 
vinistic faith, it is not surprising that in some instances the 
Churches became one, and sometimes the other, and sometimes 
a mixture of both, in their polity and usages. Thus, there 
came a time when the Church in Mexico, first Congregational, 
preferred to work under the Presbyterian forms, and unani- 
mously changed its name and organization accordingly. This 
change was effected in March, 1818 j and the reconstructed 
Church, electing Deacon Ephriam Gates, Daniel Locke, and 
Edmund Wheeler as elders, put itself under the care of Oneida 
Presbytery. This was two years after the county of Oswego 
was formed, and anticipated by five years the formation of the 
Oswego Presbytery ; that having been constituted from Oneida 
Presbytery in 1823, with originally five ministers. 

The Church now being Presbyterian, Rev. David R. Dixon, 
recently a teacher in the village of Utica, was called by it, and 
installed by Presbytery as pastor, he having been the acting 
pastor since the winter of 1814-15. The installation occurred 
in the early part of 1818, in the unfinished brick hotel stand- 
ing on ground now occupied by the Mexico Hotel. Rev. Hen- 
ry Smith, of Camden, preached the sermon, and Revs, Oliver 



19 

Ayer and Oliver Leavitt assisted in the service. Mrs. Wil. 
liams distinctly remembers the occasion, and the te.xt. which 
was from Ezekicl iii : 17, as follows : " Son of man, I have set 
thee a watchman unto the house of Israel ; therefore, hear the 
word at My mouth, and give them warning from Me." Mrs. 
Williams recalls the sermon as a very impressive one, and it 
certainly was founded upon a very solemn text. 

The first members who joined the Church, after the re-organ- 
ization, were Simeon Hopson, and Naomi, his wife ; and they 
were from Northfield, Mass., the birth-place and summer home 
of the world-renowned Evangelist, D. L. Moody. From this 
time onward, the Church grew, the Lord adding to its numbers 
during several years at almost every communion, " of such as 
should be saved." 

The Church embraced, territorially, all the region round 
about, so far as relates to those who adhered to its form of be- 
lief. East and West Mexico were its double center, while its 
right and left flanks reached out to Parish, Richland and the 
shore. And the East Mexico portion was at that period the 
stronger ; Mr. Dixon's time being given, pro rata, two-thirds to 
that, and one-third to the west section of the society. Mexico 
village had no more dreamed then of her coming renown, than 
Prattville had dreamed of her destined decline. In fact, the 
rivalry which afterward grew uncomfortably sharp, had not then 
distinctly appeared. The brethren were " of one heart and one 
mind." The Church was strong; its progress was vigorous; 
its members were persons of more than mediocre talent, cul- 
ture, forecast, and , worth. The families that gave it character 
would compare favorably with any then or since, in any por- 
tion of the county. 

The relative strength of the Church in the Presbytery may 
be inferred from the fact that for the year 1824, the Churches 
all contributed for the cause of missions, one hundred and 
thirty-two dollars, of which the Mexico Church gave forty 
dollars ; and of the one hundred and ten dollars contributed 
for education by the whole Presbytery, this Church gave 



20 

rorty-nine dollars, or nearly one-half. In 1825 the missionary 
collections were forty-one dollars and sixty cents ; which was 
four-sevenths of the amount contributed by the entire Presby- 
tery. For 1830, the year of the separation and the formation 
of the village Church, some of the Churches in the Presbytery 
reported as follows : Camden, four Inmdred and nineteen mem- 
bers, two hundred and eleven dollars and fifty cents for mis- 
sions, and twenty dollars for Oneida Institute, under the labors 
of Mr. Smith, who is spoken of as " combining extensive learn- 
ing, eloquent utterance, and tenderness of heart." So the Cam- 
den Church had been greatly prospered ; being blessed with 
*' almost constant revival," six hundred — one hundred and 
twenty at one time, — having been added to the Church, during 
his pastorate. Mexico, (original Church) one hundred and 
forty-six members, contributed one hundred and forty-three 
dollars for missions, and twenty-four dollars for Oneida Insti- 
tute ; Oswego, seventy-nine members, one hundred and ninety- 
eight dollars and thirty-five cents for missions, and eighty dol- 
lars for Oneida Institute ; Florence, sixty-one members, twenty 
dollars for missions ; Mexico village, forty-two members, and 
thirty-six dollars and nineteen cents for missions. Of other 
Churches I have not the figures ; but then, next to Camden the 
old Mexico Church was the largest in Presbytery. During the 
year of the separation, forty-eight left to form the New Church, 
one died, making forty-nine, and forty-four were added by pro- 
fession and six by letter, so that the membership after swarm- 
ing was one more than at the beginning of the year ; and had 
no division occurred, would have been, at the end of the year, 
one hundred and ninety-four. This is probably the highest 
membership the old Church ever reached. 

THE SEPARATION. 

It is well known that, owing to circumstances which could 
not have had other effect, a class of rival interests began early 
to draw out the local energies of either section, and on all 
questions of public concernment, the relative strength of the 
east and the west must needs be tested. Upon the location of 



21 

" Rensalaer Oswego Academy," in 1826, from whoso humble 
beginning has grown into its present honorable rank as an in. 
stitution, the Mexico Academy, which is just now drawing back 
to itself the memories and trophies of fifty years of noble ser- 
vice, the inevitable subject of location had to be warmly can- 
vassed, and at one period it seems to have been an almost 
foregone conclusion that its site would be fixed in the valley 
between the two sections, where it would in after years have 
accommodated nobody. But Providence wisely over-ruled by 
the temporary location of the school in an unoccupied building 
in the village, the temporary location becoming permanent; 
and the noble men, — the Brewsters, Skinner and Pratt, with 
others who had conceived and inaugurated the enterprise, at 
length very magnanimously yielded, and were ever firm sup- 
porters of the School, after it had almost accidentally taken 
root, where it now stands. 

The same considerations on which this question was settled, 
became the basis of years of intense, but not wholly ungracious 
controversy, as to the location of a house of worship. Each neigh- 
borhood desired to be accommodated. Each had its sacred rights. 
Before each, so far as either could see, were equal chances for 
the future. Neither could forecast the growth of one commu- 
nity, or the decadence of the other. True, one enjoyed the 
best natural advantages for growth, but who supposes they 
then fully comprehended those advantages ? On the other 
hand, who that has fairly computed the culture, breadth, talent 
and enterprise of the two communities, shall decide that the 
preponderance was not on the east side of the " old Rotterdam 
road .9" Howbeit, neither side was willing to surrender to the 
other ; a division came, and its coming was a blessing to each, 
and to the cause of God, in many ways. 

Prior to the separation, and accessory to it, was the ques- 
tion of Church-building. Where to locate the house, has been 
in more instances than one, a greater puzzle than how to ob- 
tain the funds for building it. And it was so now. Over this 
perplexing puzzle, the erection of a place of worship was de- 



22 

layed for years. As early as 1822, at a meeting in the school- 
house in district No. 7, this action was taken : 

1. JResolved: — That we build a ineeting-house. 

2. Eesolved .-—That we choose a committee of ten to fix the site for a 
meeting-house. 

3. Besolved : — That Jahin Wood, Peter Pratt, James Lamb, Edmund 
Mathfnvs, Asa Beehe, John Kingsley, David Williams, Samuel Emery, 
Dean Tubbs, and Martin D. Kellogg be the committee. 

These men could have located a site, if there were men on the 
earth that could have done it. But they failed. After a good 
deal of skirmishing around, they gave over the attempt; and at 
the next annual meeting, 1823, the society adopted two re- 
solves, which have a significance, as they stand, side by side. 

1 . Eesolved : — That we circulate a subscription to raise money to pay 
back interest on Mr. Dixon's land. 

2. Besolved : — That the vote for building a meeting-house be reconsid- 
ered. 

There the matter rested, but for a season. At a meeting in 
Mr. Dixon's barn, April 12, 1824, it was voted that "a com- 
mittee of three be chosen to fix on a site for a meeting-house 
for this society." Having had so little success with a commit- 
tee of their own, they now preferred one from abroad — and a 
clerical one at that — and Rev. Henry Smith, of Camden, Rev. 
Oliver Ayers, of Richland, Rev. J. Abell, of Oswego, were the 
men selected. This committee deliberated two days, and 
concluded to drive a " stake for the meeting-house, on the 
hill in front of John Morton's." This was a little east of 
the village, on land now belonging to the Dr. Snell estate. 
The stake remained there for years. It is said that many 
a stone was thrown at it in derision. But it served rather 
to mark the line of final separation than the point of union. 
The records of the old society make no further allusion 
whatever to the subject of church-building. Memory and 
tradition mui-t supply the history of what followed respect- 
ing a '• house for the Lord to dwell in." All attempted com. 
promises seem to have been abandoned, from the the fixing of 
that fatal stake. It was a martyr-stake, for the spirit of con- 



23 

cession ; and each faction said in substance : " You go your 
way, and T will go mine." The result was, that in or about the 
year 1828, each began the erection of a meeting-house. The 
bleak and stony hill west of Frattville, was selected by the 
East for their site. This spot was grand if not beautiful for 
situation ; and from it the old church-spire was seen in after 
years, as the holy influence of those who worshiped beneath it 
was felt, by all the country round. After it had been paint- 
ed, it could be distinctly seen by mariners on the lake, and 
from the distant hills of Orwell, Sandy Creek and Boylston. 
The site was given by Joel Savage Jr., and was adjoining the 
old Scriba lot of fifty acres; that having been, in 1828, sold 
to Zenas Butterfield, Chester Holcomb and Peter Pratt, at ten 
dollars per acre, to pay a salary balance of four hundred and 
sixty-two dollars and fifteen cents due to the pastor, Mr. Dixon. 

THE CHURCH BUILT. 

Before the village Church was organized, two houses of wor- 
ship were erected. The Prattville house was raised and en- 
closed in 1828, and dedicated about Christmas time, 1829. 
Rice E. Darby was the boss fmmer upon the job, and was a 
fine mechanic. He was, however, financially embarrassed, and 
it is said that vexatious litigation was resorted to for the pur- 
pose of hindering the progress of the building. 

Benjamin Arnold took the job of finishing the inside, and em- 
ployed Hiram Walker, at seventy-five cents a day, to build the 
desk and doors. Lexter Slack also worked under him, and 
Loren Webb built the sash, and the wainscoting of the gallery. 
Joel Savage made the mortar, the plastering having been de, 
layed on account of the difficulty of getting lime. It was 
finally drawn from Oswego by David Sage Williams, over a 
road such as, for roughness, could scarcely be found in the 
county, to day. The i)ainting, which was delayed several years, 
was superintended by Samuel Emery ; Ransom Goss Williams 
having sent the materials for the purpose from New York. 
Different individuals, as they had time and skill, were employed 



24 

to work on the different parts of the enterprise, thus aiding in 
its accomplishment, and substituting what they had — time and 
materials — for money, which they had not, Chester Stillman 
drew corn to the Alms House, and delivered it up stairs, at 
less than three shillings per bushel, to pay his subscription. 
He also went with a team to Utica, and had the ball and 
weather-vane made for the spire. 

Those times were not like these. We complain of stringen- 
cy ; but a fair experience of the privations, and labors, and 
make-shifts of that period, with a wilderness on every hand,, 
nature to subdue, and resources, facilities, luxuries to create, 
would silence the murmurings of every reasonable person. To 
build a church then, when all were poor, and had to clear land, 
build houses, bridges and fences, and create numerous other 
agencies for the convenience of their homes and farms at the 
same time, and to construct roads and school-houses, was a 
summons for every man to do to the last inch of his ability. 
Hence John Becker's subscription of fifty dollars cash toward 
the house when the house he lived in was scarcely worth as 
much, was deemed a very large subscription. 

And do you ask me, who designed and who executed the 
frescoing, upon the walls of that old temple ? And who con- 
tributed to purchase the gorgeous carpet that graced its isles ? 
And from what house were procured the brilliant chandeliers 
that hung pendant from its lofty walls. ^ And from what ware 
rooms came the costly sofa, upon whose softness the pastor's 
dignity might recline, during the interim of his eloquent efforts.^* 
And what ma,ker constructed the giant organ, out of whose 
pipes, and through whose snowy banks of keys, the praises of 
the Lord were drawn at pleasure, by the magic of the skillful 
players ? And do you query as to how they obtained funds — 
whether by festivals, or concerts, or sociables, or lawn parties — 
with which to supply the pulpit with a gilt-edged Bible, and 
the chancel with a marble-top table, and the communion with a 
silver service ? 

Permit me to remind you that you are not to trifle upon 



25 

these reverent themes ; there was no frescoing — no carpet- 
ing — no upholstery — no deep-sounding organ, no marble, nor 
silver — no gilting and garnishing, in that venerable house of 
God. Its appointments were severely plain, beautifully simple- 
Devout hearts supplied the melody of praise, which there were 
no passionless keys to furnish, though the viol and the flute 
were afterward brought in to blend with the tones of the sing. 
ers; and of all adornings and attractions, let us hope, the 
pleasure of worship, and the power of the word, as it came 
sounding down like a lively oracle, from the pulpit suspended 
between the heavens and the earth, acceptably occupied the 
place. 

When this noble structure was reared, we are told, Timothy 
Larrabee, one of the workmen, climbed to the plate, and look- 
ing northward, cried " Hurrah 1" On being asked the cause 
of his enthusiasm, he replied that he could see the blue waters 
of the lake ; — a sight on which no eye had rested, from that 
vicinity, before. And it is also claimed by some, that another 
of the men, at the raising, climbed to the top of the center 
pole, and threw to the earth a whisky bottle, which buried its 
nozzle several inches in the ground. The truth of this is open 
to question; but it is a sign of progress for the temperance 
cause, that Church buildings, universally raised by the aid of 
the rum bottle then, are seldom, if ever, thus made a monu- 
ment of the devil's power now. And if the fate of that 
whisky bottle could but be a sign that from the Church of God 
shall yet go forth a power that shall hurl the liquor traffic to 
the dust, I would fain believe the tale to be true- 
When the temple was all complete, save that the clean, fra- 
grant wood had not been desecrated by the painter's brush, 
a dedication service was held, and Rev. Israel Brainard de- 
livered the dedicatory sermon. Of the service beyond this 
fact I have gleaned no particulars, save that the choir chanted : 
" I was glad when they said unto me. Let us go into the house 
of the Lord." 

Mr. Dixon still remained pastor of the Church, and though 



26 

the work of building had been in progress, and a portion of 
the members had withdrawn, yet the society was enabled, dur- 
ing this and the preceding year to report, as it had not in 
eeveral years before, that the salary was all paid up, to date 
of Presbytery meeting. 

PREVIOUS PLACES OF MEETING. 

With the scanty conveniences of a new country, it became 
necessary to utilize everything to the best advantage, and make 
each thing serve as many uses as possible. Hence the school- 
houses often served for religious meetings, and the barns for 
both meetings and schools; and the private houses for sanctu- 
aries. Lewis Kellogg writes me that he distinctly remembers 
attending school and religious services in a log school-house on 
the hill where the Prattville school-house now stands, and also 
seeing the Lord's Supper administered at the house of Shubal 
Alfred, west of Mexicoville. Subsequently the log structure 
was burned, and a framed building erected of larger dimen- 
sions, for the accommodation of both school and meetings. In 
the west section, not long afterward, a similar building was 
erected, east of Salmon Creek, where now stands the Barrett 
Hotel. This building was subsequently used as a Methodist 
Episcopal parsonage. The services of the minister, Mr. Dixon, 
two-thirds of which had been given to the East, were finally 
divided equally between the two wings. Shubal Alfred's house 
and barn were both sanctuaries ; the school-houses already 
named, and that in district No. 7, and Mr. Howard's school- 
house, also the first academy, and the brick tavern where the 
Mexico Hotel now stands, and Calvin Tilfany's tavern, togeth- 
er with the Edick school-house. Parish, the residences of Simon 
Hopson, Josiah Southworth, Daniel Southworth, Joel Savage, 
George Kingsley, John Ames, Jabin Wood, Joseph Evarts, 
Lucius Webb, Joseph Edict, and Rev. D. R. Dixon, all served 
as places of holy convocation, by turn. 

The house and barn of Shubal Alfred must have been sacred 
in after years to many precious associations and memories. 



27 

Tlie barn was occupied as a place for schools at difierent times ; 
and in one instance this little institution had to be moved from 
the main part into the stable, because the floor was needed for 
the threshing of grain. How the children succeeded in keep- 
ing their thoughts on their studies, we are not informed. 
Twenty years ago, a former resident of the town, visiting from 
the West his old friends here, went about among the dear 
haunts of his boyhood, and said that the only really " familiar 
spot he found in Mexico, was Shubal Alfred's kitchen." 

The business meetings of the society were uniformly held in 
the Calvin Tiffany house, till 1818, when they began to be 
migratory, and were held in the school-house near Wm. Goit's, 
the school-house in district No. 7, the brick school-house. Rev. 
Dixon's residence, the school-house near Joel Savage's, and the 
house of Thomas Root, — till the completion of the church- 
building, when they were located there. 

CHURCH OFFICERS. 

^^ w "We have seen that Ephraim Gates, Daniel Locke and Ed- 
^jgund Wheeler were the first elders of the Church. They 
were installed April 12, 1818. In the minutes of session, 
February 1, 1821, we find the following: — "It having pleased 
God to remove one of our elders by death, a meeting of the 
Church was called to make choice of another, and Shubal 
Alfred was unanimously chosen to the office of ruling elder." 
He at first declined the office, and delayed two months to be or- 
dained; but finally,he accepted the trust, and with Levi Mathews, 
who was elected April 1, of the same year, received a public 
consecration to his work. Alfred, however, seems not to have 
been a very enthusiastic Presbyterian, as in April, 1828, being 
called on to ofier his excuse for absence from a recent meeting 
of session, he stated that he " had forgotten all about it;" and 
he then requested the privilege of resigning the office of elder, 
assigning as a reason, that he " did not like the form of gov- 
ernment." The Church took his request into consideration, 
and voted to grant it. Jabin Wood was elected in 1821> 
served till 1830; Thomas Root, elected in 1821, served till 



J 



28 

1854: John Becker, elected in 1828, served till the Church 
disbanded; Chester Holcomb, elected in 1828, served till 
1832; Martin P. Kellogg, elected in 1828, served till 1832, 
John Miller, elected 1831, served till 1836; when he went 
into the Parish Church, which was formed as a colony from 
this; Archibald Garrison, elected in 1832, also went with the 
Parish organization, 1836 ; Elias Brewster, elected in 1833, 
served till his death, 1858; Wm. A. Davis, elected 1834, 
served till the dissolution of the Church; Gates Miller and 
Wm. S. Tubbs, elected in 1852, served also till the Church 
dissolved its organization. 

Of these elders words of respect, gratitude and even vener- 
ation, such as I have not time to utter, are fit to be spoken. 
Gates removed to Paris, Oneida county, and died in 1872, full 
of years, aged ninety-two. Locke removed to Ohio, and died 
there, Wheeler, the first deceased ol the elders, died in Mex- 
ico, November, 1820. Alfred became a member of the village 
Church in 1830, and died in 1858, aged eighty-six years. 
Matthews and Wood, wliose Cliristiaii record was always 
stainless, both went with the village Church, the former dying 
in 1862, aged eighty-eight, the latter, now an octogenarian, 
happy in the Lord, is finishing his days at Holmesville. Root> 
lovable and greatly beloved, removed to Cazenovia in 1854, 
and died aged eighty-eight, in 1863. His conversion, at the 
age of forty-five or forty-six years, is still remembered, as a 
fruit of sanctified affliction. Referring to this, I can but quote 
what Mr. Dixon, writing to Jane Root, now Mrs. Jane Loomis, 
from the West, in 1850, says ol her father's first Christian ex. 
perience. Adverting to a letter he had received from her, he 
writes to Mrs. Loomis : — 

" I was deeply affected with its allusions to t'lie days of other years. I 
related to my wife what took place by the grave of your sister Harriet, 
years before your birth, when your dear father requested the privilege of 
expressing to the assembled neighbors and friends the deep emotion that 
swelled his bosom, in view of the afflictive Providence which had removed 
his sixth and last child. His address was short, but it was such as moved 
the sympathies of all present. Grace had now triumphed over nature. 



29 

He spoke of the contrast between his present exercises and what they 
were a week before, when he was called to resign his fiftli cliild. Then 
he nuirniured, hut now he was sweetly resigned ; then he was wretch- 
ed; hut he now enjoyed a peace which passeth all understanding. I 
thought, too, of another address which he made in the East school- 
house, at the comnieuccinent of the great revival of 1821 ; when every 
heart was melted, and every eye was bathed in tears, hy a single ex- 
pression that fell from his lips." 

Toucliiuglj does the now gloriiied pastor continue in his 
letter, 

" Yes, dear Jane, those were precious seasons, which we enjoyed in 
Mexico, when the spirit of God descended upon that hill of Zion, and our 
families used to go to the house of the Lord in company." 

Becker, who was born in 1797, in Duanesburg, Schenectady 
county, and came to Mexico in 1827, was a man of staunch 
principle, broad benevolence, public spirit, superior business 
talent, fervent consecration, and remarkable personal force. 
He was through many years a benefactor of the Church, the 
whole community, and of other communities also. He served 
God in his business and not in the interim of business j for that 
knew no interregnum. Ho aided liberally in the erection of 
the meeting-house, mainly built the old parsonage on the Pratt- 
ville hillside, erected largely with his own mean,'; the meeting- 
house in Parish, and left many monuments of his Christian 
worth behind him, when, at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. 
Avery, in Prattville, he died, in 1862, aged sixty-seven, his wife 
having preceded him, only six months before. Holcomb and 
Kellogg became ministers, and will be referred to in another 
place. John Miller died in Parish, 1862, and Archibald Gar- 
rison is still living near Janesville, Wisconsin. Elias JJrewster, 
born in Columbia, Windham county, Connecticut, December 30, 
178^, a deccndant of Elder Wm. Brewster, of the Plymouth 
colony, had been a teacher on Long Island, and for a time in 
the parish of Dr. Lyman Beecher, with whom he boarded; 
came to Mexico in 1809, served the public as a Justice of the 
Peace, County Treasurer, and Judge of the Court of Common 
Pleas; and being converted in 1832, was the following year 
elected to the eldership, and adorned his office and his Chris- 



30 

tian profession, to the end. I witnessed his dying hours, which 
were full of pain, and yet radiant with peace. I shall never 
forget how " Father Robinson" bent low to the dying man's 
ear, and reminded him that God was present to give him aid. 
He lived in this town nearly half a century, and being dead, he 
■\A'ill continue to speak for the truth by the lingering influence 
of a life that was eminently devoted to its service. Wm. A. 
Davis died in May, 1871, aged nearly sixty-five. He was a 
man of marked and uncompromising piety. In his biography, 
the Rev. L. N. Stratton said of him : " He compared every 
enunciation of theological belief, and out-growth of practice, 
with the Bible standard." He was a godly man. Gates Mil- 
ler, aged seventy-nine, still living in Mexico, is a venerable 
saint of God, Avhose pathway shineth, more and more, as it 
nears the perfect day. Wm. S. Tubbs, last elected of the eld- 
ers, born in Whitehall, died in perfect peace in Prattville, April 
28, 1876, aged seventy years ; his wife having preceded him by 
only a few weeks. His religion;-! life was his whole life. His 
eye was single, and generally his whole body was full of light. 
His breath was prayer; his groans were prayer; his rejoicings 
were an inspiration to more prayer ; his songs were but another 
form of prayer; prayer dawned for him with the morning light? 
and mingled in the stillness of his evening shades ; when he 
went to the house of God, and retired from it, } rayer hallowed 
his footsteps, and lifted his thoughts. Religion was to him an 
atmosphere; duty a daily fact; eternity a constant reality; 
the kingdom of Christ his Alpha and Omega. He was too 
serious for levity ; too conscientious for worldlincss ; too kind 
for any form of cruelty ; too much in earnest to be governed 
by any fastidious rules of fitness. He was " instant, in sea- 
son, out of season, always abounding in the work of the Lord.' 
On the formation of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, in Pratt- 
ville, he was one of its first ^embers, and remained in that 
communion, a pillar indeed, till he passed from toil to the 
fruitions of which he had luxuriant foretastes, even here. 



31 

THEPASTORS. 

The Church had five regular pastors, during its history of 
forty-nine years. Till eight years had elapsed, only transient 
su})plics, under ruissionary appointment, had been its teachers. 
Brainard, Waterman, Adams, Leavitt, Dunlap, and perhaps 
others, including Dixon three years before his installation, 
filled up this period. 

DAVID R. DIXON. 

Mr. Dixon was a graduate of Yale College, and had been a 
school-teacher before coming to Mexico. I have already 
spoken of his ordination, in Mathias Whitney's unfinished 
hotel, in 1814. He remained pastor till the Autumn of 1832, 
and was regularly dismissed by Presbytery, in January, 1833. 
Hence his labors in the town covered more than eighteen 
years. He is spoken of as a man of discretion and practical 
wisdom, a good Christian educator, and a devoted pastor. 
His conscientiousness was a trait which gave him an exemplary 
power among all the people. Probably no pastor so thoroughly 
impressed himself upon the Church and community, molding 
habits of thought and directing the religious developments of 
old and young, as did he. He taught the young, in private 
classes, and inspired their ambition for culture. He also 
encouraged benevolence, and cultivated missionary zeal among 
the young. Mr. Williams gave him the use of two acres of 
land, on which he induced the boys to raise corn for the 
missonury cause. He was with the people " at all seasons ;" 
in the infancy of the Church, and during its feeble struggles, 
in the "day of small things;" he was with them, to sympathize 
and counsel, through that well-remembered year of sickness, 
sorrow and poverty, when the Congestive fever, with other 
bilious complaints, filled the homes and hearts of all with care, 
anxiety and gloom ; when almost every house was a hospital 
and the well were not enough to take care of the sick ; the 
farms had to be neglected ; farmers would take turns in 
carrying loads of watchers with their teams, down into the 
Lake Shore neighborhood, to minister to the sick, who were to 



32 

be found in every family. It was his mission, under these 
trials, to minister alike to the spiritual and the temporal needs 
of his suffering flock. Tender indeed are the bonds that are 
fostered between pastor and people, in seasons of domestic 
aflfliction. He was patient, and allowed his salary to go unpaid 
during the year of sickness and dearth. His vacations were 
not spent at Saratoga or the sea-shore, but in labors among the 
weak Churches that had no pastors. After his resignation, he 
spent six months in mission work in Canada; returned and 
labored some in Parish and Mexicoville ; after Mr. Stowe's 
resignation, supplied six months again in Prattville ; removed 
in 1836 to Tifton, Michigan, and soon after to Unadilla, in the 
same State, where he died, June 24th, 18G1, being ten days 
under seventy years old. His last years were spent in 
colporteur work, under the American Tract Society; this 
agreeing better with his health, which was impaired by seasons 
of nervous despondency, which were " a part of his physical 
birth-right." Speaking of him at my request, his son, Joseph 
R. Dixon, of Homer, says : — " He was a man of good common 
sense, unaffected modesty, industrious habits and undoubted 
piety. He loved to do good, and his labors resulted in the 
progress of God's cause on the earth." 

WM. B. STOWE. 

Soon after the retirement of Mr. Dixon, the Church extended 
a call to Rev. Wm. B. Stowe, and on the 9th of June, 1833 
Presbytery met and installed him over the Church, following 
the service with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 

Mr. Stowe continued pastor till 1836, when, at his request 
Presbytery dissolved the pastoral relation. 

I here introduce a letter from his son. Rev. A. M. Stowe, of 
Canandaigua, agent of Auburn Theological Seminary, in which 
the facts of his life are briefly grouped : — 

"Canandaigua, August, 1876. 

" Rev. William B. Stowe, was born in Marlborough, Middlesex county, 
Massachusetts, January 1st, 1782, Graduated at Williams College, 1811; 
studied Theology, privately, with a pastor. 

" The first ten years of hia, ministry was in New England. The year 



33 

i822 lie came with his family to this State. His field of labor for twelve 
years was in the town of Alexandria, Jefferson county ; a new field, 
population sparse, work vast. His home was Plessis, where he organized 
a Cluirch and built an edifice. At Theresa also he organized a Church 
and erected a place of worship. There were five or six out-stations where 
he frequently preached, including Alexandria Bay. During nearly the 
'entire period of twelve years, there was little or no preaching or pastoral 
work accomplished by any other evangelical minister in that town. 

"In 1834 Mr. Stowe rcc^'ived and accepted a call to Prattville, town of 
Mexico, Oswego county, N. Y. Here he preached three years, and then 
received a call to Defiance, Ohio. After two or three years he was 
re-called to Prattville. His next field of labor was Sandy Creek, in the 
same county. Laboring there four or five years he was called to Bergen, 
Genesee county, N. Y. One year closed his labors, which embraced the 
period horn December 1844, to December 1845. 

'' During this year Mrs. Stowe died. His advanced age and impaired 
health caused him to relinquish his pastoral work. However, Mr. Stowe 
was not idle ; up to the close of life he was about his Master's work ; 
without compensation for the most part he toiled. His home was mostly 
among his children in this State and in Ohio. The last Sabbath but one 
of his life he was in his place preaching, though feeble. His sickness was 
very brief. The disease that terminated life was Apoplexy. He fell 
asleep April 21st, 1855, aged seventy-four years. At Ridgeville, Henry 
county, "Ohio, repose his remains. He died surrounded by his children 
and grand-children. 

Very sincerely yours, 

A. M. Stow. 
To Eev. A. P. Burgess, Newark, N. T. 

Mr. Stowe is remembered in Mexico, with great respect. 
The fruits of his labor are still seen there. 

J. L. MARVIN. 

Mr. Dixon finished his services as stated supply for six 
months, the last of September, 1836; his last act being to 
baptize, in. Parish, on Sabbath evening, two of his grand- 
children, Cornelia Alida and Frances Delia, children of James 
and Eliza Jane Humiston. From this period on till 1843, the 
records of Church and Society were very carelessly kept. 
Much depends upon a pastor, as to the thoroughness with 
which a Church transacts its business. Little is recorded of 
the few ensuing years. A Rev. Mr. Dickmson supplied for 



34 

one year, Rev. Samuel Cole preached three months, Rev. James 
H. Carruth, six months. In the Spring of 1840, Rev. John L. 
Mar\'in, who had studied theology at Auburn Seminary, began 
to supply; was installed in 1842, and resigned in 1843. 
Little is known of the nature or results of his labors. His 
own habits, and those of the Church during his pastorate, were 
extremely easy. Thoroughness seems not to have been the 
rule. It is not a wonder that at the end of this period, 
Presbytery passed a reproof upon the elders, for the indifferent 
manner in which their business was being done. It is said 
that Mr. Marvin afterward departed from the ministry and 
entered the legal profession. Little is known hereabout, con- 
cerning his subsequent history, save that a few years ago he 
died in Michigan. 

EZRA SCOVEL. 

Mr. Scovel began labor here in the summer of 1843. and 
continued pastor of the Church ten years. He was a graduate 
of Middlebury College. His installation sermon was preached 
by Rev. Ralph Robinson ; and Revs. Dada, and Dr. R. W. 
Condit now deceased, took part. His miristry was a struggle 
against the increasing drift village-ward, and however ef&cient 
could not possibly have neutralized this tendency. Still, the 
Church was blessed, and souls were added to it, under his de- 
voted labors. He was a kind pastor, and a clear, concise, 
sententious preacher. In the communion service, it was con- 
ceded that his equal was seldom found. Nathaniel Slack, 
whose discrimination was critical, often said that he had never 
known a minister who could make the Lord's Supper so im- 
pressive as he. It is believed that Rev. Comfort I. Slack who 
durir g his brief ministry became distinguished for his success 
in bringing out the tender significance of this ordinance, owed 
his happy manner of conducting it in part to his former pastor, 
Mr. Scovel. 

Mr. S. was not a man of the most exact habits. His pen- 
manship was a scrawl ; his horse was seldom harnessed aright j 



35 

his fences tumbled down, and his garden grew over with weeds ; 
he was al\va3S forgetting something; when "father llohinson," 
a paragon of precision, his successor, went into the barn, he 
looked around and inquired where brother Scovel hung his 
harness, and was told that he never hung it anywhere ; he kept 
it on the floor. 

Before coming to Mexico, he had served the Church in 
Plielps, scv'eral years, and after his resignation here, in June, 
1853, he lal)ored in Marathon, then returned and purchased a 
place in New Haven, which he subse(i[uently sold, and removed 
to Saugatuck, Michigan, where at the age of eighty years he 
died in 1874. He was a good man, and many in the Judg- 
ment will call him blessed. His orphaned daughter, Marcia, 
has her home with Mrs. John Gilispie, of Fulton. 

RALPH ROBINSON. 

Mr. Robinson began preaching temporarily here in June, 
1853; before the formal dismissal of Mr, Scovel by the Pres- 
bytery. He continued acting pastor till October, 1857, — 
four years. During his ministry, the process of disintegration 
became more visible ; Mexicoville drew steadily upon the mem- 
bership; Prattville people became discouraged as to future 
prospects; the congregation grew sparse, one and another 
took letters of dismission from the Church, and when Mr. 
Robinson left, his wife being the last to receive a letter, there 
were only fifty members, and some of these were non-resident. 
This decline was no fault of the pastor. 

Mr. Robinson was a man of peculiarly marked individuality. 
He was a clear, precise, positive thinker ; the type of his mind 
fitted him to be a theologian, an educator, a disciplinarian. 
He was firm, but kind; benevolent, but judicious and system- 
atic in the use of his means ; he was an exact man — a noble 
man — a conscientious man — a preacher who most profoundly 
and earnestly believed the doctrines of Divine sovereignty, 
total depravity, and regeneration by grace alone, which with 
fiuch fervent unction he preached. He regarded the Divine 
scheme of the gospel as the grandest reality in the universe ; 



36 

and so he gave it the unbounded admiration of his great souL 
The sentiment which ran through his fifty years of ministra- 
tion was expressed when, on his dying bed, as the bread and 
wine were being partaken with him by bis pastor, Mr. Reid, 
and a few others, he exclaimed in the midst of the service : 
" Grace, grace, grace ! from the foundation to the top-most 
stone." 

He was a descendant of John Robinson, pastor of the Ley- 
den Pilgrim Church in Holland. He graduated at Middlebury 
College in 1805, studied theology with Rev. Holland Weeks, 
of Pittsford, Vermont, was licensed to preach by the Rutland 
Congregational Association, Vermont, preached a year in and 
about Malone, N. Y., was ordained and installed over the 
Churches of Granville and Hartford, Washington County, 
November, 1810, where he ministered twelve and one-half 
years; in May, 1822, was settled over the Church in Marshal, 
Oneida County, where a precious revival attended his labors, 
which were continued five years; in 1828 he removed to New 
Haven, Oswego County, preaching there and in Mexicoville 
two years; in 1830 he was called to Pulaski, and continued 
his ministrations sixteen years ; his labors there being abund- 
antly blessed of God. At one time, on a single Sabbath, eighty 
persons publicly professed their faith in Christ, by u liting 
with the Church. In all, one hundred and nineteen were re- 
ceived on profession, and eighty-one by letter, during the 
period of his pastora^.e in Pulaski. Then he returned to New 
Haven, supplied there seven years, came to Prattville in 1853, 
remaining four years, and finished his pastoral work of half a 
century, by supplying the Presbyterian Church of Coustantia 
one year. Thus he ceased from his labors, and his works still 
follow him. 

Many incidents, illustrating his clear penetration, and his 
decision of character are still remembered of him. For in- 
stance, in the year 1842, Rev. John W. Fowler, then pastor of 
the First Presbyterian Church of Utica, was deposed by his 
Presbytery, for gross immorality which had been proved 



37 

agaiust liim. His defense was that lie was laboring under 
fits of " moral insanity," when he committed the acts of im- 
morality. An appeal to Synod was sustained on this ground; 
able medical and clerical testimony being offered in Fowler's 
behalf. Father Robinson was moderator of the Synod when 
the vote was taken, and when Rev. F. R. Spencer arose and 
demanded Ihat the moderator should be allowed to vole on 
the case, Robinson got up and said he had been ti'ying, by 
every possible means, for two day, by a fair invesiigation to 
ascertain the nature of that " moral insanity" which had been 
urged in Fowler's behalf; and, he said, " I have come to this 
conclusion: that it is the devil in the heart — just the kind of in- 
sanity that rules in the heart of every wicked man, when he 
perpetrates his deeds of darkness." Still the Synod reversed, 
to its subsequent sorrow, the act of the Presbytery — thus re- 
storing Fowler ; and Robinson and others protested in vain. 
A part of the Oneida Presbytery withdrew the same day and 
proceeded to organize the Presbytery of Utica. 

"Father Robinson" had a brother who was a Congrega- 
tional minister in Vermont, a son of that brother being now 
pastor of the Congregational Church in Homer, N. Y. He 
had also two sons, E. W., and S. N., who graduated from 
Hamilton College and Auburn Theological Seminary. The 
former has passed from earth; the latter is laboring in the 
Western part of New York, and has also a son in the minis- 
try in that part of the State. It is noticeable that by Robinson 
and the Brewsters, the old Church was linked to the immortal 
memoritis of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. 

On the termination of Mr. Robinson'.^ labors, A. P. Burgess, 
a young licentiate commenced labor among the Prattville peo- 
ple. Many of the old memb.ers took letters to the village, 
and Presbytery appointed a commission to dissolve llie old 
Church. But it did not choose to be at once officially extin- 
guished, and so voted. In a few years, however, the final 
throe came. The session granted letters to all, and a grand 
organic life became extinct. 



38 

FEUITS OF THE CHU'RCH. 

To trace all the streams of good that flowed, during half a 
century, from the threshold of that old sanctuary on the hill, 
would not be a possible task. To attempt it, would be pre- 
sumption. It is enough to say, that it was a grand, a strong, 
a glorious, a useful Church. Its elements of power were above 
the average. It contained men and families such as will give 
dignity and worth to any Christian fellowship. It would be 
pleasant to speak at length of its inside history. It was a 
devoted and working Church. It obeyed the rrle in regard 
to infant baptism — a rule so often made the exception now. 
It enforced its discipline, as no Church seems to in modern 
days. 

Thus, we find Mrs. L. M. faithfully bringing charges against 
S., wife of G. K., for '' treating her husband with habitual dis- 
respect, and not obeying her husband in the Lord " Mrs. K. 
confessed the charge, and was restored to the Church. We 
find Luke Butterfield and Thom-is Root, in brotherly faithful- 
ness, seeking to reclaim Mr. H. from the sins of " falsehood, 
slander and Sabbath-breaking." H. humbly confessed these 
faults, in part; but his confession had not the ring of deep 
penitence, and he was finally suspended. Mr. L., neglecting 
his covenant obligations, and becoming unfriendly to the pas- 
tor, also defective in some of his doctrinal views, on the whole 
the Church finally ejected him. Mr. W. was brought before 
the session for " Intemperance, neglect of family worship and 
of public worship." Before this case was well disposed of, 
deacon Gates entered complaint against Mr. 0., for •' neglect 
of family worship and absenting himself from the communion." 
Thus, the members were constantly held under check and rein. 
Wanderei-s were looked afl,er, before they had wandered very 
long or far. To be a Church-member then, meant disciplina- 
rily, more than I fear it does now; it meant to " walk by the 
same rule, and mind the same things." The " book" was not 
a dead let! er; nor the "covenant" a "glittering generality." 

It would be pleasant to speak of the seasons of fasting and 



39 

prayer, of consultations, ami visitings from house to house; 
of the great revival in 1821, when at an early hour in the 
morning, the voice of prayer might be heard in every house; 
of tlie revival in 1831, which produced such gracious fruits; 
of the Female Mission Society, out of which grew the Sewing 
Society, organized as early as 1828, and still in existence; of 
the meeting of prayer for Colleges, always well sustained ; of 
the noble efforts for temperance,* reaching back to 1827—8, 
when Rev, Mr. Eels and others beca«»e pioneers in this cause; 
of the stand taken by some of the pastors in the anti-slavery 
struggle before that cause was generally espoused, — when some 
of the members, rather than hear an abolition sermon, insisted 
on performing their devotions under the horse-shed. 

It would be pleasant to go back again, to the time when IVIr. 
Dixon organized a Bible-class in 1814, which for many years 
continued to meet. Sabbath afternoons in Summer, and evenings 
in the Winter, — the fruits of v/hich labor are blessing the world 
yet. 

It might be profitable to recall the time in 1814, when 
Amanda Brewster, of fragrant memory, niece of the Judge and 
the Dr., organized the first Sunday-school in the town, perhaps 
the first in the county, on Prattville Hill ; and to trace the 
history of that good seed, modestly sown, as it has multiplied 
itself since. 

It would be pleasant, also, to recall some of those playful 



*The tone of the Cliurcli was so high on the temperance question that 
in 1836 some of the Parish members, desiring greater liberty, drew off 
to organize a Lutheran Church. From the sessional record of June 19, 
1836, I take the following : "It appeared from a memorial sent into the 
Church, signed by these, (MiUer, Crim, etc.,) and other members of the 
Church residing in Parish, that unwillingness to unite with their brethren 
in the promotion of a Church on the principle of total abstinence from 
the use of and traffic in ardent spirits, is the occasoin of this request. 
The Session expressed tlieir deep regret that this was the case. Yet they 
thought it best, on the whole, to grant the request, and Mr. Dixon was 
authorized to make out the letters." 



40 

scenes of the good old days, whicli relieve them of a kind of 
awful and painful solemnity; for, history, like statuary, too 
often presents its characters to us only with their features un- 
relaxed. They seem to us oppressively grave. 

But there were jolly as well as sedate people, even in those 
times of sterner regime. An incident well illustrates this. 
Mrs. Joel Savage had been wont to chide the boys and girls, 
who rode to parties, funerals and Sabbath services on horse- 
back, for riding too rapidly home on Sabbath afternoons, from 
the meetings at Calvin Tiffany's. Knowing that Mrs. Savage 
herself rode a horse which, when excited, it was not in her 
power to hold in, the young rogues resolved to try a plot. So 
at the close of service the nest Sabbath, they quietly waited 
behind, till the good woman had mounted her beast and started f 
when they followed after, so rousing the energies of the fiery 
steed that " Aunt Abagail," in spite of herself^ rode home at 
break-neck speed, out-stripping all the rest. 

LABOKEES GIVEN BY THIS CHURCH TO THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. 

An important though brief chapter remains for me yet to 
present. One of the most useful functions of any Church is to 
produce godly and faithful ministers. This Church was re- 
markably fruitful in that direction. No chapter in the annals 
of its work is more remarkable or more gratifying than this. 

Ten men have honored the gospel ministry, who were 
members either of the Church or Sunday-school, or both. These 
I will briefly name v — First : — 

Geo. W. Finney. — He became a Congregational minister, an 
eloquent orator and advocate in the temperance cause, and died 
in Oakland, California, 1 865, aged sixty-nine. He was a brother 
of C. G. Finney, D. D., the great Evangelist. 

Chester Holcomb. — Mr. Holcomb was once an Elder of the 
Church, and afterward, for thii'ty years, labored in the ministry. 
He has two sons in the ministry ; Rev. Chester Holcomb, Pekin,, 
China, and Rev. G. T. Holcomb, Downer's Grove, Illinois. His 
second wife, several years preceptress of the Academy at Newark, 
is now a practicing physician in Syracuse, and resides with her 



41 

son-in-law, Rev. George T. Bowling. An outline of Mr. Hol- 
comb's life and labors is found in the following letter from his 
son: — 

Downer's Grove, DuPage Co., III., October 21st, 1876. 

" Dear Bro :— My father was bom, September lOth, 1804, at Sand 
Lake, N. Y. : — studied for the ministry ^A^than active pastor, and was first 
settled in Winfield, N. Y., where he staid ten years. In 1848 he removed 
to Lewis Co., N. Y., wliere he organized a Congregational Chm*cli in 
Port Leyden, whi(;h is now flourishing. In 1851 he removed to William- 
burg, N. Y. ; in 1854 to Webster, where a deep work of grace attended 
his preaching ; in 1857 he removed to Joy, and labored there for six years. 
Fairville and Sodus Centre were out-stations, and in both of these, revi- 
vals sprang up. With the former field, especially, the work was extensive 
and powerful. A Church was organized on each field, carrying on meet- 
ings at both these places at once; church-building being projected at each 
point, also wore on his health until it gave way. One year spent at Fair- 
ville ended his active service. He removed to Newark, where he died in 
the Autumn of 1865. He leaves a blessed memory, a benediction to h'is 
sons who follow in his steps in China and America. He had great faith. 
At one time an officious brother minister tried to work his way in between 
my father and his people. Calling at a house he said, 'Mr. H., what 
will you say to Peter at the gate of heaven V Quick came the reply, ' PU 
tell him I am Elder Holcomb ; he will open the gate and let me right in.' 

Yours fraternally, 

Gr. F. Holcomb." 

Mr. Holcomb won the reputation of an earnest revival 
preacher, and a • powerful expounder of the Word, in the 
Churches with whom he labored. 

Lewis Kellogg. — Mr. Kellogg has kindly consented to 
furnish a letter of interesting reminiscences, which is here 
inserted : — 

North Granville, August 10th, 1876. 

" Rev. a. p. Burgess : — I was bom in Mexico, Oneida county, N. Y., 
November 20th, 1 805. PrattviUe, on the north-east corner of which stood 
the log-house of my nativity, the only house there, was not known, nor 
was Oswego county organized tUl I was eleven years of age. My educa- 
tion till I was twenty-one, was all acquired in the school-house on the liill 
where stood the PrattviUe church. In my infancy my parents removed to 
a new place, which then meant an unbroken forest on the street running 
from Colosse to Mexico Point, one-half a mile north of the school-house, 
a log structure, burnt when I was about eight years old, and replaced by a 



42 

large frame-building in which sixty scholars gathered in Winter, and which 
was the only room for religious services till I was twenty-two. In that 
building were held all the public meetings during the first great revival in 
that community in 1821. In June following, then in my sixteenth year, 
in company with about thirty others, I united -wath the Church ; Mr. 
Dixon pastor. I commenced school-teaching when nineteen, and in 1827 
being of age, and after teaching four months, I entered the Academy at 
Mexicoville, and soon after the Oneida Institute at Whitesboro. I was 
again in the Academy in 1828, till the Institute opened, when I returned 
to that. Early in 1829 my health failed ; I relinquished study, but strictly 
from convictions of duty resumed it in 1832 ; entering the Academy and 
remaining teaching certain classes to pay my board and tuition, till the 
Spring of 1 834, when I went once more to the Oneida Institute, where all 
board-bills were paid in labor. In the Autumn of that year I entered 
Auburn Seminary. Drs. Richards, Mills and Perrine, then constituted 
the Faculty ; Dr. Cox was added while I was there. Before the year 
closed my health again gave out, and in September 1835, I started for 
Boston taking a schooner from New York, and engaged five or six weeks in 
mackerel fishing around Cape Cod. Returning improved but not restored, 
I asked and received from the Presbytery of Oswego, a license to preach. 
That was in the Prattville Church, on February 7th, 1836. Rev. Charles 
Jones, then of Bellville, Ontario, was present, and before my examina- 
tion was completed, presented a request for my services from two small 
Churches which he had then recently organized, — one in Wellington, the 
other at Pleasant Bay, both on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The 
next day I started with him for my first field. The Churches were ten 
miles apart, and being physically imable to Avrite sermons, I arranged 
trains of thought mentally, and often on horse-back. Before my engage- 
ment in Canada expired, I received through a friend a request to supply a 
Church in Columbus, N. J., recently organized by the third Presbytery 
of Philadelphia. That Church had its meetings in a tent, but as Autumn 
approached, a change was indispensable, and I raised in Philadelphia, near 
seven hundred dollars to aid in building a chapel. That edifice, twenty- 
eight by forty feet, plain but neat, AA-as finished before January 1st 1837. 
While at Columbus I remained a member of Dr. Beman's Church, in 
Troy, N. Y. Closing my six months engagements there, I returned to 
Troy, and met a member of a new Congregational Church in Union village, 
Washington county, N. Y., wanting a preacher. I Avent there April, 
1837, and preached six Sabbaths, and within ten days after leaving, 
received a call from the congregation, which but for the lapse of the ten 
days I should have accepted ; but pending this delay Providence sent me 
to Whitehall, and the tenth day after reaching there, a total stranger, I 
received a unanimous call to become pastor of the Church. I did not 



43 

hesitato hetwoeii the places. The last Sabbath in June, 1837, I preached 
my tirst scrmou in the pulpit which I occupied, altogether, twenty-three 
years. The Summer meeting of the Troy Presbytery being just passed, 
the pro!?ecutiou of the call was deferred till the meeting of the Synod in Octo- 
ber, when arraugcmeuts were made for my ordination and installation, 
which occurred in November ; Dr. Beman preaching. I remained in 
Whitehall, till May, 1854, seventeen years, when I received and accepted 
a call to the second Presbyterian Church in Oswego. There for two entire 
summers I was seriously out of health. In July, 18.56, 1 went to Trumans- 
burg, N. Y., where I remained till March, 1862. July, 1862, I was 
recalled to Whitehall, where in 1868, I was la'd aside by a very serious 
attack upon my lungs, which prevented all ministerial work for two and a 
half years. Meantime I visited Florida and Minnesota, and went to Salt 
Lake. I sent in my resignation to the Churcli in April, 1869 ; my second 
settlement there thus covering about six years. For results of my two 
Pastorates in Whitehell, I refer to an enclosed article, from a Whitehall 
editor, — a Baptist, and no special friend of mine. Returning from my 
trip over the Rocky Mountains, I found the Churcb here vacant, and anx- 
ious for a supply. Being but nine miles from Whitehall, I had preached 
here many times, and was personally acquainted with a majority of the 
congregation. I came first for two Sabbaths and was very cordially 
invited to become their pastor. I accepted with the stipulation that I was 
to preach but once a Sabbath. I have however so far recovered as now, 
in my seventy-first year, to preach twice and do all necessary pastoral 
work with little inconvenience. It is a very small Church, but wealthy 
and intelligent. My work of course is soon to close. Many mercies call 
for gratitude j many defects demand humility ; some spiritual experiences 
inspire trust, and ' help laid on one mighty to save,' encourages hope. 

Fraternally yours, 

L. Kellogg." 

Erastus M. Kellogg. — Mr. Kellogg was a member of the 
old Prattliam Church, and was a classmate in Hamilton College 
with the now Rev. Dr. Kendall, Secretary of the Board of Home 
Missions. They walked from Mexico to Clinton, in mid-Summer, 
carrying their shoes part of the distance m their hands, to be 
examined for entrance. He went through the College in a class 
with Dr. Kendall and Dr. T. W. Dwight. 

Of Mr. Kellogg's two pastorates in Whitehall, extending in all 
over twenty-three years, during which extended improvements 
were made with church-huilding, and large accessions to the 
membership, the editor of a Whitehall Journal says : — " He 



44 

probably exerted a stronger influence in this community, in 
every respect, than any other man who has resided in it." 
He is now " well stricken in years," and yet is an active pastor 
at North Granville. 

Mr. Kellogg has written me from Hammonton, New Jersey, 
where he now labors, as follows : — 

Ext. — •" As soon as I was large enough to walk from Union Square, 
where we then lived, I went to the Sabbath-school held in the ' Slack' 
School-house,' on the hiU west of Prattville, and opposite where the 
church was afterwards built, the distance being over two miles. Luke 
Butterfield, long since gone to Heaven, was my teacher. My mother, 
Mrs. Esther K. Kellogg, was a member of the Church from before my 
recollection. My sister, Rebecca Ann Kellogg, now Mrs. Clawson, li\dng 
at Brodhead, Wisconsin, found the ' pearl of great price,' in the revival, 
I think of 1829, and united wdth the Church. I united with the Church 
in 1829, at the age of fourteen. We lived then sis miles distant, in the 
town of Albion. My father, Alvan N. Kellogg, united with the Church 
about 1830 or 1831. Rev. Mr. Dixon, of precious memory, was the 
pastor. I prepared for CoUege, and pursued the studies of the Freshmen 
year at Mexico Academy ; first under Mason W. South worth, and after- 
wards under Professor Hapgood. The late Mrs. Kingsley and other 
members of the Prattville Church, furnished me provisions, a week each, 
I walking over for them once a week, and boarding myself at the Academy. 
I graduated at Hamilton College in 1840 ; studied Theology at Auburn 
Seminary, and began my ministry at New Haven, Oswego county, N. Y.'' 

He spent several years in successful pastoral labors in New 
England, and has recently removed to his present Charge. 

Martin Powell Kellogg. — On May 13th, 1 828, JohnBecken 
M. P. Kellogg, and Chester Holcomb, were elected by the Church 
to the office of ruling Elders. Kellogg subsequently became an 
earnest and eloquent minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and died in Corydon, Wayne county, Iowa, a few years since, 
aged fifty-eight years. 

Alfred M. Stowe. — Pastor Stowe had a son Alfred, who 
became a minister. Mr. Stowe was, according to the records, 
examined by Session January 2nd, and he and Mrs. Wortman 
were received into the Church January 3rd, 1836. He entered 
Hamilton College in 1845, graduated and entered Auburn Semi- 
nary in 1849, whence he graduated in 1852.' In June of that 



45 

year he took up his residence in Canandaigua, where he has 
since resided. From June 1852 to June 1860, he was district 
Secretary of the American Tract Society, for central and 
western New York. From 18G0 to 1873 he was district 
Secretary of the Publishing Board of Home Missions, for the 
State of New York, excepting the Synod of New York. From 
May 1873 to the present, he has acted as financial Secretary of 
Auburn Theological Seminary. In a hasty letter to me he 
says : — " I have enjoyed my work from year to year. The 
Lord has seemed to precede me." 

Samuel Cole. — Mr. Cole was reared under the fostering care 
of this Church. The following letter, which I venture to insert, 
will place his history before the reader : — 

KiNGSviLLE, Ashtabula county, Ohio, August 22iid, 1876. 

" Rev. a. p. Bukgess : — Dear Sir : — You request me to inform you 
in respect to my age; when converted, when educated, and in respect to 
my labors, &c. In reply I would say, that it is quite repugnant to my 
feelings to say much about myself, or, about the results of my labors. 
Others may do so if they please. The only reason why I consent to 
comply with your request is, that there is no one, so far as I know, who 
can, intelligently, give you the information that you request. This is 
my apology for saying what I do about myself. 

" I was born in Mexico, N. Y., in 1807 ; was converted, as I trust I 
was, during the powerful revivals in town, 1830 or '31. Abandoning 
the business plans of life, from a deep sense of duty, — and having gradu- 
ated from the shoemaker's bench, — I commenced ray study for the ministry 
in Mexico Academy ; completed my literary course in Ooeida Institute, 
and my theological studies at Oberlin. After leaving Oberlin, most of 
of my time, (not all,) from 1840 to 1843, was spent in special and pro- 
tracted efforts to bring sinners to Christ, and that too with gratifying 
results. Previous to this, during the second year of my theological 
course, at the earnest solicitation of the trustees of the Prattville Church, 
I spent the Fall and Winter months with them in attempts to do good. 
When invited thus to do, I felt as though I could not do it. It was a 
burden too great for me to bear! How could I attempt to conduct the 
services of the sanctuary ! How could I attempt to instruct the fathers 
and mothers in the Church, who were so much my seniors in age and 
experience ! I was not prepared for such an effort and my means of 
preparation were rery meager indeed, and I felt like running away to 
escape responsibility, as Jonah did. The trustees told me that they had 



46 

tried iu vain to obtain a supply for the pulpit, and that if I would not, 
come to their help, they would give up the effort, and let the " Church 
die and be buried." It seemed to us a case of life or of death. It vvas 
with much fear and trembling thai I commenced my labors with a Church 
amid which I had spent my youthful days. But good was done. Some 
were convertpd and joined the Church; diiferences were healed among 
the membership, and for years after, the means of grace were sustained 
among thein. In the Spring 1843, I was invited to take charge of a 
Church in Shippany, N. J. On arriving there I found that the male 
members of the Church were very much alienated ; a result occasioned 
by so many of them having failed in business. In the meantime there 
were eight or ten sisters of the Church who were united iu prayer and 
efifori for a revival of religion, as the only hope of the Church. This 
gave me hope. In view of outside appearances, I often felt that I was 
doing about as much good as a man would in attempting to split open 
a rock with a puff-ball. Though often disposed to leave as I was, 
something held me there to the place and to the work. SuflBce it to say 
that by the aid of two ministerial brethren, a series of meetings were 
commenced, which resulted in a powerful revival of religion ; and a short 
time before I left I received into the Church thirty-two members, and 
mere were to follow. Previous to this, apparently, the aspect of things 
was exceedingly dark and discouraging. There was hardly a ray of 
light to inspire hope and courage. We were completely shut up into 
God. And yet it became quite evident, when the young converts related 
their experience, that during all this time of darkness, Grod was so power- 
fully moving on the minds of some that they were constrained in the 
night season to get up to pray. In view of such results, after such a 
season of dark nights and discouragement, I made a solemn promise to 
God that I would never again be discouraged though discouragements 
might beset me at every step. Sometime during 1844, I assumed the 
pastoral relation over a Church in north Ashburnham, Massachusetts. 
In five different places in that State and in Connecticut 1 labored eighteea 
years ; in each of which some good was done in various ways, besides 
the ingathering of many precious souls into the fold of Christ. I have 
also sustained the pastoral relation over two Churches in this State : — 
Wymouth and Saybrook ; in each of which during our pastorate, there 
were quite a number who came out on the side of the Lord. At length 
health failed me, and I was obliged to give up the pastoral work, and 
most (if the time for four years past, I have preached as a temporary 
supply. Because of ill-health, January last, I closed my public labors 
expecting never to resume them again. 

•' Now, in view of what has been said, I wish it not to be anderstood 
that I have been as useful as I might have been, had I been more faith- 



47 

fill. A review of the past leads me to mourn over my mistakes and 
Bhort-comiugs, and if any one has been blessed by my instrumentality, I 
feel disposed to give to God all the praise and the glory; lor without 
Him we can do nothing. Success in Christian effort disposes one to 
praise God for the privilege of doing something to honor Him. 

Yours, S. Cole." 

Mr. Cole has been an earnest advocate of the Oberlin type 
of Theology and Christian living, and his'labors have been 
signally owned of God. 

AvEUY S. Walker, — whose venerable mother was a loved 
member of this Church, was reared under its ministry and in 
its Sunday-school. He began study in Mexico Academy; 
graduated from Oberlin College in 1854; from Union Theo- 
logical Seminary in 1 857 ; became pastor of the Congregational 
Church in Rockville, Connecticut, and remained till 18lj4; was 
pastor at Dover, New Hampshire, from 1864 to 18G8; at 
Fairhaveu, Massachusetts, from 1868 to 1871, when he accepted 
a call to the growing and vigorous Presbyterian Church in 
Gloversville, N. Y., to which he still ministers. 

James A. Skinner. — Mr. Skinner, son of Judge Skinner, was 
also reared under the teachings and in the spiritual atmosphere 
of this Church. He graduated at Hamilton College and Union 
Theological Seminary. He has been a Presbyterian pastor in 
California, also in Cleveland, Ohio, and is now conducting 
successfully a branch department of the Presbyterian Publica- 
tion Board, in Syracuse, N. Y. 

Rev. Comfort I. Slack. — Born and reared in the bosom of 
this Church, to which his affections clung till the last; graduated 
from Hamilton College in 1860, and then from Auburn Seminary 
in 1863 ; after supplying- a Church for a season in northern New 
York, became pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Newton, 
Iowa. Here, in the midst of ardent labors and in the dawn of a 
growingly popular and useful ministry, he died in 1865, aged 
twenty-nine years. He was to me a loved, confidential friend. 

Furiher mention should be made of 

Amby H, Savage. — Son of Reuben Savage, who became a 



48 

member of the Church in 1821 ; a young man beloved and of 
much promise. He, with two hundred ex-slaves, started from 
New Orleans for the Colony of Liberia, as an agent of the 
Colonization Society, in 1833, and landing there, died in the 
short space of nine months. 

Nor can I pass without notice, the name of 

Ra^'som Goss Williams, — who became a member in 1830 
whose venerable mother, Asenith Williams, still lingers to tell 
the story of the past. Mr. Williams in boyhood, teamed the 
weaver's trade, in the old Prattville factory ; and he afterward 
wove of noble deeds, the fadeless webb of a useful life. He 
became connected with the business management of the New 
York Evangelist at an early day. He also espoused the abolition 
cause, and like Dr. J. C. Jackson, now of Dansville Water Cure, 
who obtained his wife, daughter of Judge Brewster, from the 
Prattville Church, became an eloquent lecturer in behalf of the 
slave. Subsequently Mr. Williams founded, in Utica, an aboli- 
tion paper, entitled, " The Emancipator and Human Rights ;" — 
a publication so radical, that for some utterances it contained, 
the Governor of Alabama made a demand on the Governor of this 
State, for Mr. Williams, that he might be taken South and suitably 
chastised. He was born in 1811, and died in New York, 1857. 
Not soon will the earnest addresses he made, as from time to 

time he visited the old home-church in Prattville, be forgotten. 

« 

Nor can I pass by the son of the first pastor, 

Mr, Joseph R. Dixon, — who graduated at Hamilton College, 
and became a teacher, following the profession twenty years ; 
edited a useful paper in Homer, N. Y., twenty years more, and 
is now one of the pillars of the Congregational Church of that 
village. 

Algernon S. Savage, — is recalled by many as a young man 
of superior talent, who intended to go through Oberlin College 
and prepare for the ministry. Before entering College, how- 
ever, and while on his way thither, death put a sudden period 
to his earthly hopes and plans. 

Hon. Charles R. Skinner, — of Watertown, now in the New 



49 

York Legislature, and Prof. Hiram W. Slack, Principal of a 
High School in St. Pauls, Minnesota, were in their boyhood, 
members of the Sabbath-school, in the "old church on the hill." 

At sora*e time connected with the Church, Sunday-school, or 
Society, were the following physicians : — 

Sardius Brewster, — who studied medicine with Dr. Oliver 
Brewster, his eldest brother, of Beckett, Massachusetts ; was 
licensed by the Connecticut Medical Society, as a physician and 
surgeon, in 1 808, and by the Columbia county Medical Society 
of this State, in 1809 ; was the resident doctor in Prattville for 
nearly fifty years. He was a Christian gentleman of the New 
England type, and was personally and professionally much 
respected and loved. He was a descendant of Elder Wm. 
Brewster, of the Mayflower ; the sacred ashes of whose home 
and grave, at the foot of" Captain's Hill," Duxbury, Massachu- 
setts, were included in the parish where I was pastor from 1870 
to 1873. The Dr. became a member of the Prattville Church 
in 1842, and died April 18, 1866, in Ohio, aged seventy-one 
years. 

Alfrederick Smith, — whose early home was with Judge 
Pratt, studied medicine with Dr. Brewster, and became after- 
ward for many years, a successful physician in Mexico village. 
He has retired from practice, and his wife having died some 
years since, he devotes much time to travel ; is a lover of 
literature, of Nature, and of antiquarian studies. Mexico is 
one of his homes. 

Waite Wadsworth Brewster, — a son of the Dr., graduated 
at Hamilton College, and became a physician, and now resides 
in Austinburgh, Ohio. He united with the Church in 1830. 

Alfred Dean Tubbs, — became a member of the Church in 
1850; became a regular physician ; practiced in Williamstowu, 
N, Y. ; enlisted in the Navy, and not long afterward died of 
Yellow Fever at Cape Haytien, West Indies, aged thirty years. 

Frank M. Byington,* — a physician of eminent ability, and 



•Died, suddenly, in January, 1877. 



50 

growing popularity, for several years located at Fayetteville, 
N. Y., now pursuing his profession in Louisville, Kentucky. 

Doctors Theron T. Hubbard of Saginaw, Michigan, and 
Edward T. Savage, of Minnesota, were members of the Sabbath- 
school. 

In this category belong also the following lawyers : — 

Elias p. Brewster, — who died in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1865, 
aged thirty-five jears; Mason S. Brewster, of New York city; 
T. W. Skinner and A. F. Kellogg, of Mexico. 

Also the following merchants : — Silas W. Brewster, of Han- 
nibal, N. Y. ; Williams Brothers, of New York City ; Becker 
Brothers, sons of John Becker, Mexico ; and the several Stone 
Brothers, long and favorably known as leading business men in 
Mexico. 

Mention has been made of Amanda Brewster, niece of the 
Dr. and Judge Brewster, a young woman who taught the 
district school and organized a Sunday-school in 1814. Jona- 
than Davis, a nephew of Asa Davis, also a district school- 
teacher, from Massachusetts, was the first male superintendent. 
The School organized by Almeda Southworth and Maria Per- 
kins, in the mill school-house, near the present site of the 
Toronto Mills, had a successful career ; as had Mr. Dixon's 
Bible-class, which was well-sustained and useful, through his 
pastorate and that of Mr. Stowe. 

In 1849-50, Miss Maria Dewey, of the Methodist Episcopal 
Ciuirch, a devoted Christian, taught a select school in Prattville, 
and mainly under her earnest labor a revival of religion occurred 
among the young people, the precious fruits of which commemo- 
rate her faithful zeal in the Christian lives of several who are 
now blessing the world. 

The first singing-master from out of town was B. P. Barnes ; 
and James Carpenter was chorister in the early meetings in 
Calvin Tiffany's house. In later years, Mr. Sizer, now of 
Syracuse, taught music on the hill; and many can remember the 
leadership of Joseph Slack, Dr. Warner and Shepard Emery, 
with their bass viols and flutes. 



51 

Tlie history of the old Church would not be complete without 
a reference to Mrs. Kingsley, sister of the Brewsters, whose 
name is still fresh and fragrant in the memory of older persons 
in ]\[exico. She used to instruct and catechize the children in 
Mr. Dixon's absence. A letter received from her daughter, 
Mrs. Ely, is so full of interest that I cannot resist the temptation 
to give it a place in this sketch : — 

Mantorville, Minnesota, September 3, 1876 
" Mr. Burgess : — Dear Sir : — In reply to your request iu regard to 
the old Church of Prattville, I feel I cannot do justice to myself or to the 
information I would now give if I could talk with you. To the history 
of my good mother, her Christian life, her connection with the Prattville 
Church, and her precious memory, I cannot do justice. Of her joining 
the Church I have no recollection ; but she must have been nearly one 
of the first members. She was born and educated in New England, and 
was of the Puritan stamp. She vras a self-denying living Christian until 
her death ; -which occurred in Waupun, Wisconsin, eighteen years ago 
last Winter. Her age was almost seventy years. I cannot remember 
when the flame did not ascend from the family- altar, as well after my 
father's death as before. If strangers were present, she never faltered. 
I remember when she used to walk two miles to the female prayer- meet- 
ing at Deacon Boot's. The influence of those dear friends — their prayers 
and admonitions, are still blessing many who are scattered in the world. 
The first Sunday-school was formed by mother's sister, who came and 
taught the district school one season, and organized a Sunday-school. 
She was one of the Brewster family of New England. Her name was 
Amanda Brewster, now Mrs. Judd, living in Ripon. Wisconsin ; a devoted, 
useful woman. This was the first Sunday-school in our town. The 
first deacons I remember were Mr. Ephraim Gates and Mr. Daniel Locke, 
long .«ince gone home. As regards the first members of that Church, I 
cannot say much. The families living there after my remembrance, were 
mostly good Christian people. Our minister, Mr. Dixon, a faithfal 
father and friend, gone to reap his reward and secure his crown, was one 
of those tried and true servants whom God will own as his chosen and 
adopted. It was often said that more went out from that old Prattville 
Church to bless the world, (and many of them are now singing praises to 
God and the Lamb in the Church Triumphant,) than almost any other 
Church in those days. Some are now preaching the good news of salva- 
tion to a perishing world. Some have died on foreign shores who went 
as missionaries to proclaim Jesus to the benighted ones of earth, I well 



52 

remember the Summer of 1831, wlien God poured out his Spirit in large 
measure, and many were made to rejoice in His love ; and numbers were 
added to the Church, I could say almost daily, for a time. Those days 
will never be forgotten ; 

"Happy daj's, 
When Jesm washed our sins away.'" 

Few are left there now to tell the story of the past. But bless God, we 
shall soon all pass over the River, and when on the other side we shall 
meet loved ones and praise our God forever, where parting shall be no 
more. 

Mr. Burgess, if you can gather any thing of interest to you from this 
T shall be glad. I always remember that old Prattville Church as my 
home, and I should be glad to see a sketch of it when finished. 

Pleiades Brewster Ely. 

Mrs. Lydia Stone, who, with her husband, Isaac Stone, became 
members of the Church by letter in 1829, and went with the 
West Church in 1830, was a Christian woman of more than 
average holiness and heavenliness. She lived in widowhood 
after 1848, was an invalid many years, and yet she illustrated 
the mystery of grace by which even a sufferer may so trust 
God that 

" Life shall all be sunshine, 
In the sweetness of the Lord." 

After many lives had been made better by the hallowed power 
of her own, she passed to her rest, a few years since, in a good 
old age. 

Mrs. Polly Norton, out of many names I would gladly produce 
here, must have a brief mention. She was the daughter of Dr. 
Samuel Frisbee ; was born in Washington county ; came to 
Yernon in 1808, to Prattville in 1814, and removed to Albion 
in 1818, carrying fire in a kettle. Her house, a log-cabin, was 
a kind of forest tavern, and was called the " Center House." 
It was also a mission station ; and here, twelve miles deep in 
the woods, Rev. Henry Smith of Camden used to preach. It 
was a favorite stopping place for missionaries — Gillett, Brain- 
ard, and others. Mrs. Norton died in 1869, aged eighty-one 
years. 



53 

I cannot forbear to insert here the following memento of the 
original Church — the letter of experience which Sophronia 
Kellogg, who died in 1836, presented to the Church, on seek- 
ing admission to membership in 1813. Miss Kellogg, afterward 
wife of Luke Butterfield and mother of Mrs. S. H. Stone, was 
a timid girl of seventeen years, and Mr. Dixon, who had but 
just commenced labors with the Church, permitted her to give 
her experience in writing. This was the first " letter" of the 
kind presented to the Church. Its deep tone, the hatefulness 
of sin as it appeared to her penitent mind, and the thoroughness 
of God's work of grace in her heart, explain the eminent 
spirituality of her after-life, and place her before us as a 
model of genuine conversion: — 

'•' Receiving a special call from God to turn from the error of my ways, 
unto Him, particularly from his Providence in. visiting us with sickness, 
admonitions from the death-bed, and a consciousness that should the Lord 
come out in judgment against me, I should be made as miserable as I had 
made myself vile and sinful, I was convinced that my heart could not 
endure, nor my hands be made strong in the day that the Lord should 
deal with me. I was resolved to seek the favor of God, being persuaded 
there was no alternative but in Christ. I determined to seek Him and 
eerve Him, if possibly the thoughts of my heart might be forgiven me. 
I desired to live no longer in the service of sin. I prayed to God that if 
it was consistent He would forgive me for the sake of His Son, Jesus ; 
pleading his merits alone; being sensible that I myself deserved nothing 
but everlasting burning. Acknowledging his justice in casting me off 
forever, and that it was of his long-suffering mercy that I was spared, I 
desired to be made one of his meanest servants, if for the sake of his Sou 
be would forgive me. Meditating upon my lost estate by nature, like- 
wise the sufficiency there was in Christ, I beheld such a beauty and 
harmony in Him, that I was constrained to give glory to God. 1 desired 
to have His will done and not mine. I saw no beauty in anything short 
of the Divine perfections. I could thank God for his threatenings as 
well as promises, for if I was miserable I only wished to praise His 
name for his goodness and his wonderful works to the children of men. 
(I believe I preferred His glory to my happiness.) Since that time (which 
is about four months,) I have often desired to manifest my love to God 
by confessing Christ before men. (I leave you to judge whether I am a 
fit subject for baptism and the Lord's Supper.) It is by faith alone we 
can be justified in the sight of God. Oh, that men would consider these 



54 

things before they are forever hid from them, and not for one morsel of 
carnal mirth, sell their immortal souls. My desire of uniting with the 
people of God is the idea that He has commanded it, and I esteem it a 
privilege to do whatever He is pleased in His wisdom to command. I 
likewise desire to have the eyes of the Church upon me, to watch over 
me and to admonish me, and to treat me as one liable to err, as one know- 
ing that I am unworthy of the least of these mercies. But it has pleased 
God for Christ's sake to bestow these privileges, and feeling a delight in 
performing whatever He is pleased to command, I desire that you would 
exainiue me faithfully, conscious that you have to give an account to God 
for the same. If there are any that wish for further satisfaction, my sin- 
cere desire is that they would use freedom on the suliject and watch over 
me with jealousy. If the question be asked, upon what consideration I 
felt this love to God and resignation to His will, I answer, it was upon 
the view of His love He exercised toward mankind, while yet in their 
sins, and his long-suffering mercy toward mankind, in that while they 
were yet enemies to Him, Christ died for the ungodly. Viewing this I 
perceived it must proceed from such infinite love that I sank into nothing 
before Him, and cried. Thy will be done. Oh, Father, and not mine. I 
desired and do desire to devote my life to His service. 

SopHRONiA Kellogg. 
To the First Congregational Church in this place. 
Mexico, August 29, 1813. 

The records of the Church show that a large proportion of 
its members attained to an advanced age ; and " Old Mrs. 
Fry," now living in Albion, one hundred and six years old, is 
of a family, several of whom were members of this Church. 

Others have followed useful careers and reached honorable 
positions, whose records cannot be given here. The old church 
was never large, and, located in a rural population, could not 
have been. But probably, considering its numbers, it had more 
young men* who acquired an academic and a collegiate edu- 

*In a letter from Mr. S. W. Brewster, of Hannibal, he says: — "When 
but nine years old I walked three miles morning and night, to a house 
west of the Academy, (while the first old academy was building,) that I 
might study Latin. I did this for the Summer. Then for eighteen months 
I went to Mr. Dixon's house, and studied with him, and then for one 
Summer walked to the academy. The next Winter we had a student from 
Hamilton College, in our district, so cousin Waite B. and myself read 
Latin there — I adding Greek. That Winter closed my work in that line. 



55 

cation, and rose to worthy distinction; more who became 
ministers of Christ; and more young women who attained to 
culture and worth, than can be shown to be true of the vast 
majority of country Churches. Fittingly docs Mr. S. W. 
Brewster, in his letter to me say : " I am sad at the thought 
that so good a Society must die out. But there is pleasure in 
reflection that those trained there have helped to build up and 
sustain many other Churches." The old hive swarmed itself to 
deatli. The old tree died of over-bearing. Its life did not 
become extinct, after all ; but it took upon itself new forms and 
went out upon wider missions. Its " lines have gone into all 
the earth, and its words to the end of the world." 

The membership, from 1810 to 1830, when the West Church 
was formed, and in the East branch afterward, was in all, four 
hundred and twenty. Of those who were members at the time 
of the division, sixteen at least, are now living : — Mrs. Asenith 
Williams, Mrs. Allen Beebe, Mrs. M. A. Ball, Rev. L. Kellogg 
Clark Beebe, Jabin Wood, Mrs. Jane Lyon, Susan Butterlield, 
Mr. and Mrs. Asa Beebe, Mrs. Bobbins, Anson Gustin, Mrs. 
Nathaniel Slack, Mrs. M. P. Kellogg, Mrs. Mary Averill, 
Erastus M. Kellogg. 

APPENDIX. 

On the dissolution of the old Church, some of the remaininsr 
resident members, uniting with others of the Wesleyan Metho- 
dist Connection, formed a Church under that Connection, in 
1859. Mr. Burgess continued to supply the pulpit, till the 
Spring of 1865. During his pastorate the meeting-house was 
rebuilt,* on the beautiful site formerly occupied by the residence 



it being decided I had not health nor farther money to carry me through. 
So I graduated at twelve. But enough. Father's interest in my educa- 
tion, and Mr. Dixon's interest in the boys, shown by having me, and 
some of the time one and two others in his study, are, perhaps, things 
worthy of notice." 

*The spire of the old church was taken down the day that '' Fatlier 
Robinson," the last pastor, died ; and the last service held in the church, 
was one for fasting and prayer, on the breaking out of the war. 



56 

of Dr. Brewster. Under his ministry several were added to 
the Church. In April, 1865, Rev. L. N. Stratton became the 
pastor, in which relation he served sLx years, his labors being 
attended with great public favor, and with prosperity and growth 
to the Church. He was succeeded by Rev. A. F. Dempsey, one 
year. Mr. Dempsey was followed by Rev. G. L. Payne, three 
years, and he, in turn by Rev. E. Barnetson, the present pastor. 
Mr. Payne left behind him many warm friends, and Mr. Barnet- 
son is growingly useful and much esteemed. 




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